Sanguis Draconis
by The Black Sun's Daughter
Summary: Working in the ARC, life is fairly normal for the team, as normal as one can be as a dinosaur-wrangler. Until a new anomaly appears, leading to a far-off future and delivering a group of refugees none of them can believe. With danger following close behind, the team will have to work with the exiles, even if they aren't exactly human... (AU)
1. Broken Chains

**A/N: this story is going to be long and a bit convoluted, but I hope you'll like it anyways. And it's AU. Very, very AU. Just a head's up so you're not overly confused as to why everything is so weird.**

* * *

She doesn't remember anything beyond the Chains and the Cage, doesn't know a life beyond this too-small space.

A small part of her wonders if perhaps she was born here. She knows it isn't true, though. Knows that she had once been Outside, far beyond the reach of the Chains. If she had been born here, she would be like the Other Ones, the unnatural creatures that could not think beyond their next meal and shrieked and howled from their own Cages. She is different from them. She can think still, does not scream and throw herself around in the Cage. And she has a name she likes to call herself, though she has not thought of it for a long time. Somewhere in her pain-fogged mind, she has memories of another voice speaking her name. Calling to her with it, speaking it softly in her ear. She lets out a ferocious snarl into the murky darkness of her Cage, growling at her own visions, because all they do is leave reality burning with hopelessness and disappointment. Still growling in her throat, she tries to settle into a position more comfortable on the floor, sheltering her body with her wings, tail curled around her legs. Her limbs are all shackled, restrained by the Chains, and the heavy weight of the Collar is always present around her throat. Her wings move to cover her, trying to shelter her, keep her warm, shield her from the lights that sear her eyes and make her head throb; her tail curls close to her body for warmth. She lowers her head to the floor, trying not to move, trying to remember what it felt like to sleep without an all-absorbing hunger and fiery agony in aching wounds.

Sleep sometimes helps her remember. Sometimes fractured pieces of dream-memory are able to pull free of her murky, clouded mind and soothe some of that encompassing pain. She can't remember the sun, but she thinks it would be warm. And light—not the harsh, dazzling lights that enter the Cage from the tiny entrance whenever the Keepers, the grey-clad Keepers with their metal poles that spit lightning, arrive with her meager meal. No, it is a real light, one from Outside. She doesn't quite recall what exactly grass is, but she knows there were different kinds. Some are dry and crackled underfoot; others are soft and comfortable to lie in; some are tall and tough, stinging when they slap against skin. And snow…snow is cold. It is not an image, but rather just a feeling she recalls, a feeling of cold, crunchy-slushy stuff in her hands, clinging to her eyelashes and skin. Rain is wet. Cold as well, perhaps, seeing that the water They sometimes douse her in to clean her is cold. Other than these few basic things, she feels—_knows_—that she is missing something, lacking a vital piece of the puzzle that she has no hope of retrieving because the Cage and the Chains keep her from it.

She wishes that she could forget these tiny fractured shards of her memory, but at the same time, her mind clings to them for they are the only proof she has of Outside, a knowledge that there was something else beyond the murky, pain-filled darkness. Still, the images taunt her, keeping alive a tiny ember of hope that did nothing but provide fresh disappointment and sorrow. That agony and that disappointment drills its way into her head, burrowing beneath her skin and gnawing on her very bones. It is all she can do not to lose herself, to become like the Other Ones and howl and shriek at the simple unfairness of it all.

She wants so badly to forget all of it…

…and yet, in order to _forget_, she knows a part of her needs to _remember_.

* * *

Nick Cutter was in an unusually jovial mood as he walked into the ARC. Things were actually going reasonably well for him lately, and it seemed like for the first time in a long time, he was walking around without his own personal dark cloud. "Morning, Stephen. Have we heard anything new? Any sign of a new anomaly, another creature?" he asked, shrugging off his jacket as he walked in.

"Morning to you, and no, there is not. Looks like we might actually have a day off, Nick," Stephen replied without looking up from the rifle he was studiously cleaning at a table; shiny gun pieces were laid out on the illuminated surface like a great metallic jigsaw puzzle, and he was cleaning each piece one at a time with precision. He risked a glance up at the professor. "You're in a good mood today," he noted.

"I am," Cutter agreed, sitting down at his desk. Looking around, he noticed that there was a lack of a platinum blond pixie cut and a mop of dark curls. "So…where's the girls? Off playing in the garden lab?" he asked.

"Yeah, they both are. Abby's got new plants from the last alert, and Emily has some rare new bug from the corner of…Christ, some unpronounceable country in Micronesia," Stephen answered, setting down the rifle stock and picking up another small piece.

_Of course,_ Cutter thought to himself. Abby Maitland was their bona fide lizard girl, an expert on anything with scales, but she also had a hobby of cultivating their samples of prehistoric flora gathered from different anomaly alerts. Not only did it provide entirely new insights into the actual environment of the ancient times, but the possibilities of new medicines were near endless. She was also best friends and flatmates with Emily Merchant, a young woman with a doctorate in entomology, fascinated with all things that crept, crawled, and buzzed. She'd been called in after an anomaly in a museum disgorged a flock – swarm? Horde? – of prehistoric insects nearly a metre long, spiders the size of a small dog. They'd been poisonous and two of the soldiers had been bitten. Nobody died, but Emily had been hired on not long after. Few anomalies ever had insects, but she was just as knowledgeable in other areas as well.

Taking out a pen, he picked up the stack of reports that Lester had wanted him to fill out yesterday and started working. Stephen hummed a soft, nameless tune as he worked, but Cutter didn't bother telling him to stop. "If, by some sort of miracle, we manage to get out of here before 9 at night, you up for a round at the pub?" he asked.

The tracker put away the cleaning rag and started fitting his favourite rifle back together, knowing the pieces so well it was almost second nature. "Yeah, sure. Bring the girls?" he asked.

Cutter nodded. "Aye. If we walk in with a pair of pretty lasses with us, we won't seem as much a pair of sorry old gits."

"I heard that, and I am not anybody's show pony," announced Abby in a loud voice as she walked into the room, a spunky little firecracker all wrapped up in a tartan skirt and a fashionably ripped top, her white-blond hair standing up in all directions. "But, of course, for you, I'll make an exception," she added, flashing a flirty grin towards Stephen, and the tracker winked back.

Cutter rolled his eyes.

* * *

They were free.

She was sprinting through the trees, ignoring the branches that slapped against her bare body, cutting into the tender flesh where her scales did not cover. Never mind the rocks that gouged her feet bloody or the terrible burning pain that was developing in her side and in her legs, muscles screaming as they were suddenly forced to sprint after months-long captivity.

Her companions were running with her, all of them making a desperate gambit for their freedom. If they were caught, there would be no punishment – it would only be death. Flight was inconceivable: their wings were clipped and hadn't healed, not to mention the patrols that were no doubt already in the air, the shrill sounds of alarms reaching her sensitive ears.

Hunger cramped her stomach, fatigue burned in her muscles, but adrenaline, and the pure, heady rush of _freedom_ burnt in her too powerfully to be slowed down. Both hearts pounded in her chest so hard it felt as though her ribs would break, her blood flowing fast and hot. Her lungs drew in great, ragged gasps of air that seared in her mouth and throat as if fire. She had to keep running. She had to run. If the Keepers caught her, she'd be dead. She could not find the air to speak to the others, but they knew the same truth. The fear and the promise of their own freedom drove them on despite the exhaustion, despite the hunger and the pain.

There was a crash and a cry of pain as one of them fell over, bloody bare feet getting caught in a tangle of undergrowth. Without slowing in their desperate sprint, she reached down and caught the younger female by the arm, dragging her back up to her feet.

A shadow passed across them as the Keepers flew overhead on the backs of their kind, the others who wore the Collar and were still bound in the Chains. Behind them, she could hear the shrieking and snarling of the Others being set free, like bloodhounds after a prey animal. The wild flare of hope that burnt in her chest suddenly sputtered as her fear shoved its way forward once more, but then a wordless cry made her turn. Just ahead, she saw something that was impossible, a blessing from the gods.

A Gateway.

The Gateways were things of legends, doorways woven of magic that could cross entire worlds. All of the Gateways were supposedly destroyed before the War so no Human could use them against their kind. They weren't supposed to exist anymore – and yet there one glittered just ahead, a sparkling so very serenely in the pale, brittle predawn light. Gripping the younger female tighter, she pushed her legs harder, dragging the younger along with her towards the Gateway. Legend or not, it was still there, and they were going through it. Right now.

* * *

The detector started going off, a shrill alarm and flashing red lights filling the once-still air of the ARC, half-startling both men out of their seats. Stephen pushed to his feet, slung his reassembled rifle over a shoulder, and clapped Cutter on the shoulder. "We've got another one!"

Cutter swore under his breath. "Damn it, I just got done. Now I'm gonna have another damn report to file," he snarled, looking down at the papers he'd only just completed.

The doors swung open as Emily and Abby came walking in. "C'mon, boys, let's get going," said Emily with a smile. She was a tall woman with curly dark hair that tumbled in wild ringlets around her shoulders and a figure with curves in all the most pleasant places. Following close behind her was Captain Becker, head of the ARC security detail, and Danny Quinn, a former copper that'd somehow managed to get on the team despite the fact that Lester had threatened to have him arrested. Becker was stoic as a stump and had about as much humour as a stump as well, and Quinn was a tad obnoxious, slightly inappropriate, and more than a tad impulsive, yet the two men were somehow thick as thieves.

"Hopefully this time it'll be something small and cuddly, and we can all go for a drink afterwards," said Stephen.

"If it is, I'll buy the first round," Quinn laughed.

"The anomaly's shown up in the Forest of Dean," said Oliver Leek, their thin, weaselly-looking PR manager, in his reedy voice. "Hurry up and get moving."

Abby looked up at the man and gave a mock salute. "Sir, yes, sir! Right away, sir!" she cried in an overdramatic voice, making the rest of them laugh and Leek scowl unpleasantly at her.

His good mood was still going strong, and Cutter hoped that it truly was going to be something small and cuddly for once. Just once.


	2. Strangers

**A/N: I saw in the reviews there was some concern over the lack of Connor. I forgot to mention it in the first chapter, but this is an all-characters story, so _everyone_ will make an appearance at some point or another! So don't worry if you notice someone missing. They'll show up eventually. Like I could ever forget Connor... :)**

* * *

The anomaly was still there when they arrived, glittering serenely in the dappled light that made its way down through the tree limbs. Cutter idly wondered to himself if the Forest of Dean was some sort of focal point for the temporal rips, because they constantly seemed to appear there. He jumped out of the truck, boots sinking slightly into the rain-softened ground, and he walked forward, arms akimbo as he stared at the light. Anomalies were beautiful. They looked like shattered glass, as though a crystal ball had exploded in midair and the shards still hung there in a slowly rotating circle of jagged pieces and soft ivory-gold light; he found it a bit peculiar, how something so beautiful could mean such danger. God only knew what might come through, if something hadn't already. "Stephen, see anything?" he called.

"Not yet," the tracker replied, bent over slightly as he walked in a slow, careful circle around the anomaly, studying the ground for any sign of tracks, a broken twig, disturbed vegetation, an imprint in the soft soil. "Wait a tick. Right here."

Cutter walked over to where Stephen was, but he couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. "What is it?"

"This." Stephen crouched on his heels and pointed. There was a thick smear of something black near the roots of the trees, but mingled with something silvery, like spilt mercury from the inside of a thermometer. "It isn't blood, but that definitely isn't tree sap either. And look. There's a trail of it, too," he said, pointing, and Cutter could see more drips and smears of the black ooze staining the edges of ferns and the ground. It looked greasy and thick, like motor oil after it'd been used, a sharp contrast to the silvery liquid. "There's no tracks, but that's coming from _something,_ and the trail leads...right back into the anomaly," Stephen pointed out. "And seeing how there's no other trail, it must've come _out_ of the anomaly and gone _into_ the forest instead of the other way 'round."

"Right. Alright. Get your rifle, we'll see what there's to see. Abby, Emily, you take a few soldiers, head off that way," Cutter directed, pointing off to the right. "Quinn, Becker, you take a few the other way. If you see anything, _tranquilise_ it first," he added with a sharp glare towards the captain; Becker and his men had this rather nasty habit of shoot-first-ask-questions-later behaviours.

Becker frowned but nodded anyways, and they went their separate ways, heading off deeper into the forests. "What sort of creature d'you suppose it is?" Stephen asked in a soft voice, adjusting the strap of the rifle across his shoulder.

"No idea. What in the hell _is_ this stuff?" Cutter stared at another smear of the oily dark stuff smeared across a tree trunk. It had a bitter scent to it, but it also mingled with a fainter, slightly pleasant scent that was slightly heady, almost like fine wine. It looked wrong, mingled in with the liquid silver. Reaching in one pocket, he carefully scraped some of the peculiar ooze into a phial and sealed it tight to be analysed later in the lab.

"No idea," the tracker echoed, then paused. "Hmm. The trail splits here," he said. The trail of...whatever it was...lead off in two directions from where they stood. "Now what?"

"I'll go left, you go right?" Cutter suggested, and Stephen shrugged as if to say _whatever you say, boss,_ and they went their separate ways, following the trail. He noticed that it got thicker as he went, more of the black-and-silver liquid splattering the ground and leaves. He went rigid all at once, though, hearing a low growling sound from ahead. Slowly, cautiously, he moved forwards, taking care not to make any noise. Just ahead, there was a small creek, barely more than a trickle of water, and a dark shape crouched beside it, making the curious noises.

Cutter couldn't make sense of what he was seeing. It resembled a human being, with arms and legs, hands and feet quite like his own, and a human face peered out at him through a matted, tangled mess of brown hair. Except that only parts of its skin were soft human skin; covering the rest of it were odd patches of overlapping diamond-shaped scales of a dark red colour, laying tight against each other like a suit of armour. Winding about her legs—_her_, because the not-quite-human body was very definitely female—was a long, sinuous tail with gold spines protruding in a straight line along its backbone, each one no thicker than a pencil yet sharply pointed. Great wings like those of a bat arched out from her back, blood red and quivering, and two curved black horns protruded from the top of her hair. Her wings, he saw, were smeared with more of the thick silvery liquid as well as the oily blackness, and it dripped from the torn edges of her wings and coated her bare feet. _Blood?_ He must've made some noise or another, because she went rigid, head snapping towards him.

She moved so quickly, he hardly saw her move, just had the vague impression of a lean shape coming towards him, then he was thrown backwards with bone-bruising force, tossed like he was no more than a clay marionette with strings severed. His back hit a tree so hard that every bird in its branches fluttered away with a shrill call of alarm, and his skull cracked against the rough bark, sparks flying across his eyes. He slumped towards the ground, but he didn't get very far. A hand wrapped around his throat, pinning him back against the tree, lifting him up so that his feet dangled inches from the ground; he hung in midair like a child being swung up in its parents' arms…except that most parents didn't hold their children up by their throats.

He looked down into a face that, whilst alien in all its strangeness, was strikingly… unbelievably…beautiful. Eyes that were more gold than brown were narrowed up at him, burning with furious, vehement hatred. Thick tangled hair so filthy he could barely tell its colour framed a pale, gauntly thin face; two short, curved black horns protruded from the matted mess of curls. Freckles were scattered across the bridge of her nose and cheekbones, and small red scales made glimmering tattoo-like patterns that started at her temples and curved down to her cheekbones, mingling with the freckles. More scales lined the sides of her throat, covering her shoulders, making odd patches across her arms. Her lips skinned back from her teeth in an expression that was barely human, and a ripping snarl like the rumble of thunder tore out of her throat, a sound too ferocious to come out of such a small body. Her teeth weren't anything human—sharply pointed and longer than any human's could be, more like the fangs of some predator than a human.

The hand about his throat, small and delicate, tightened and tightened until he couldn't gasp in a breath, and he felt blood trickling down his neck as her nails cut into his flesh. She snarled at him once again; he could feel the raw visceral strength in her hand despite its delicate size, like a steel vise clamped about his windpipe, ready to squeeze with all the force of a thousand lorries and crush his trachea. Panic began to overtake his mind, hardly able to get in any oxygen, chest burning; he kicked out at her, but he couldn't find any foothold. His own hands pulled at hers, trying to prise her fingers away from his throat, but he might as well been trying to move a statue, and her _scales_—how strange it was, to give names to such things in regard to another person…if she was a person—though giving the appearance of being rough, were fitted together so close and tight that they were quite smooth, only faintly ridged where they separated, and they were hard as steel in contrast to the softness of her flesh.

She growled ferociously at him again, the sound vibrating in his own chest and making his insides feel liquid. Black spots were crowding around the edges of his vision, and a strained, cracked noise escaped him as he tried to speak but couldn't for lack of air, trying to beg, plead, anything. A stray thought drifted across the front of his mind as a hazy mist started clouding his thoughts, _Jesus Christ, I'm about to be strangled to death in the middle of a forest by sodding Lizard-Woman. What a way to go…._

The sharp _crack_ of a gunshot cut through the rushing noise in his ears; she let out a sharp yowling snarl of pain, dropping him. Cutter gasped in a harsh breath, coughing and spluttering, slumped over on his hands and knees on the ground. Vision swimming, he saw the reptilian woman lunging towards Stephen, the hunter reloading his tranq rifle; the metallic dart protruded from the part of her side that was flesh and not scales. Before she could get to Stephen, though, her steps faltered, and she fell over, trying to stagger back to her feet but failing. She gave another growl, though now it sounded woozy, and then she fell limp on the leafy ground, her rumbling growl fading away.

"Holy…_shit," _Stephen said quietly, lowering the rifle. "Nick, you alright?"

The professor grasped the rough bark of the tree and pulled himself up to his feet, one hand gingerly touching his throat. Coughing roughly, he nodded, then stared at the pale, thin form lying on the leafy ground.

"What the hell is she, Cutter?" Stephen asked, carefully walking around her, still clutching his rifle tightly in preparedness to shoot her again, but she was unconscious, though her tail still twitched spasmodically.

"I have no idea," he answered, his voice coming out hoarse. "She just came at me, and…" His words trailed off as he gaped with an open mouth.

Because, as they watched, the woman's wings furled in close to her naked back and then seemed to melt into her flesh and disappeared entirely, leaving only smooth human skin behind. The scales paled and softened, seemingly dissolving back into her skin. Her tail curled in close to her legs and then vanished as well, and even her horns disappeared. Then there was only a very naked, very human woman lying on the ground.

"What in the name of _God…?_" Cutter stepped closer to her, certain his eyes were deceiving him, but no; she was no more than a human woman now. And naked. He shrugged off his jacket and hastily draped it across her body, covering her up. He looked up at Stephen, and the other man was gaping at her with the same expression of disbelief. "Let's get her back to the truck."

_That_ snapped Stephen out of his reverie. "What? Nick, you can't seriously—"

"She came out of the anomaly, Stephen," he replied sharply. "And we both just saw the same thing happen. We're not going to leave her out here." He didn't know what this woman was, where or when she'd come from, but there was no way in hell he would just leave her lying out here. Bundling her up in his jacket and trying not to touch any bare skin, he slid both arms under her and lifted her up, carrying her back the way they'd came, towards the anomaly and the trucks. She was light, too light, like she was made of air and feathers instead of flesh. And when he picked her up, her head fell back, and he saw that she wore a _collar_ of all things, a thick, heavy thing that was crafted of metal and leather. And on her wrists were shackles of solid metal, pieces of broken chain dangling from them, the skin of her wrists chafed raw and bloody around them.

As the anomaly came back into view, he saw that the soldiers had surrounded one of the trucks, holding guns on whatever was in the back, and Abby was sitting up in the truck bed with Emily hovering nearby; Danny and Becker were watching with anxious eyes. "What's going on?" Stephen called.

"We found—" Becker turned towards them and instantly brought his rifle up. "More of _those,"_ he snarled, glaring at the unconscious girl-woman in Cutter's arms. "They were holed up in a cave a ways off. They put down a dozen men with their bare hands."

"We had to shoot them up with enough ketamine that they ought to be dead," said Abby, jumping down from the back of the truck. "The dose is big enough to bring down a bull elephant, but they're barely out of it. What dose was in the dart you shot her with?" she asked as Cutter carried the unconscious stranger over to set her in the back of the truck; there were six other bodies lying in the truck bed, all of them just as thoroughly knocked out; he saw they all bore the metal shackles and collars as well, and if he wasn't mistaken, they were just as naked as she was beneath the blanket that'd been tossed over them.

"Not enough," Stephen answered. "She'll probably need another to keep her out."

Cutter set her down gently, trying not to jostle her very much. "Did the other ones look at all…strange?" he asked at last.

"If by _strange_ you mean they looked like they were half-lizard, then yeah, they were pretty damned _strange,"_ Danny replied, still staring at the unconscious shapes in the back of the truck with wary eyes, holding his gun tightly in hand, looking ready to put a round in their heads if any one of them moved. He flicked his gaze towards the woman. "Was she lizard-girl too?"

"Yeah, and as soon as she was out, she just sort of…changed," Stephen replied.

The professor glanced down at the woman's form lying still beneath his jacket; somehow, without the bizarre reptilian features, she looked much smaller and more delicate...yet his throat still ached from the near-strangling he'd went through, and no doubt he'd be bruised tomorrow. "Get them back to the ARC. I want to know what in the world they are," he said firmly.


	3. Prisoners

"Are you out of your mind? Abby, he's bloody _delirious_ – "

"I know that."

" – and he'll probably take your _arm_ off," Emily finished worriedly, staring at her flatmate in concern. Each one of the strange, reptilian-human creatures, whatever in the hell they were, had each been put into a separate room with an armed guard. She'd seen the things fight, and even though they were little more than skin and bones, bruised and battered, these creatures had still managed to take down 14 SF's without breaking a sweat. They were deceptively, freakishly strong.

One of them, a young man with a matted mess of dark hair, was thrashing on his cot, snarling and growling out an array of noises that weren't anything human. Emily knew that human vocal cords couldn't make that sort of noise, which only further heightened her worry. The growls were so deep and low she could feel the vibrations in her chest. He was making other peculiar noises, a sort of burbling, clicking sort of noise between the growls. He was delirious with pain or fever or both, perhaps, but that made him all the more dangerous. And Abby wanted to _touch_ the damned thing. "You're out of your mind," Emily reiterated.

The petite blonde gave a wan smile as she ran cold water onto a flannel. "Yeah, probably. But he's hurt, Em, and he's burning up. _That_ – " She nodded towards the deep, jagged cut on the young man's back parallel to his spine. " – is an infection. It's what's making him act like this." Abby wrung the excess water out of the flannel so it was only slightly damp, took a deep breath, and moved closer to the cot. She could see the thin, well-scraped hands that clutched the edge of the cot white-knuckle tight; each finger was tipped not with a fingernail but a curved black claw like the talons of a hunting bird. She had no problem envisioning what claws like that could do to her flesh, and fear coiled tight in her belly...but then he'd give a pained whimper and twist uncomfortably on the cot, and aching sympathy rose to fight back the fear.

Taking a deep breath, aware that Emily was watching nervously, she stepped closer, moving slowly and carefully. The young man's limbs were thin and pale, little more than skin and bones, but she could still see the whipcord-taut muscles beneath the surface, strong as steel cord. No doubt he'd throw her across the room if he wanted to. As he gave another fierce growl, she nearly jumped back, but then she reached out and lightly pressed the cool cloth against his forehead.

Abby went stone-still as she saw his entire body tense, muscles coiling, but then he relaxed into the touch. She let out a breath she hadn't realised she'd held in the first place. Gently, she stroked the damp flannel over his gaunt cheeks where livid flags of fever-colour stood out against his skin and down the side of his neck, pushing aside strands of unwashed, tangled black hair. His growling had faded away to silence now, only his harsh breathing to be heard. Now that he was lying still, she could see his back. There was a deep cut on his back, right on the back of his left shoulder, parallel to his spine, and something thick and black oozed out of it, trickling down his back in sluggish lines, like used motor oil or tar. She knew it had to be some sort of infection, but she didn't have any idea what kind. Occasionally, something else silvery would end up oozing from the wound as well, but it looked more like quicksilver than oil. Abby wanted to look closer, but she wouldn't push her luck that far, not until he was fully conscious.

Taking care to avoid the bleeding wound, she lightly stroked the damp flannel over the line of his shoulders, wiping away some of the grime that layered his skin. She bit her lip, seeing the pale lines of scar tissue and the dark splotches of fresh bruising on his pale skin. She moved the flannel down a little, letting it rest in the hollow between his shoulder blades; she could feel as well as see the contours of his spine and ribs far too well. Abby wondered when he'd last had a proper meal, if he'd ever had one at all.

Her heart leapt up into her throat when she felt a pair of hands grasp her waist, and she dropped her gaze downwards. The young man had his eyes open, but they were weren't focused on anything, glassy and hazy. His slender, long-fingered hands were at her waist, and though she could feel the sharp tips of his claws just pressing into her skin, he wasn't digging in to draw blood. Instead, his hands slowly slid around to press to the small of her back, drawing her forward so she was leaning forward slightly over the cot, and he nuzzled his head against her stomach like a great cat. And then, very quietly, he began to growl again, a low rumbling noise that vibrated up her arm from where her hand rested on his back into her very heart. Whether or not it was a warning or a sign of contentment, she didn't know, but his claws weren't shredding her back, nor was he exerting any of his strength to snap her back, so she figured it was safe enough.

"You've got serious thrill issues, don't you?" Emily asked quietly.

Abby bit her lip on a smile.

* * *

The last thing she remembered was being in the forest.

She knew they had travelled far. The Gateway had led into the heart of a forest, one that was far, far away from the Kennels – she could no longer smell the thick, cloying stench of rot and death, of fear and pain in the air. They'd been too crazed with fear and adrenalin to stop running until they'd made it a far enough distance away from the Gateway to be reasonably safe. And once both hearts had come back into normal rhythm and she could breathe again, she had been able to look at things and see clearly. Seven of them had made it through alive, including herself – three males and four females. All of them were too thin, starved and battered. More had escaped their Cages…but the Keepers had killed them or recaptured them. It was just the seven of them. She'd left them in a cave whilst she went out. A dangerous venture, but one that was necessary. The rot had infected all of them. It was from having their wings clipped, she knew. Infection was common after the routine, especially considering that the Keepers used rusted bolt cutters for the procedure instead of proper medical tools even though they had access to them, and since they were kept in such close, tight quarters that were the furthest thing from sanitary. But there were plants in the forest, ones that sang to her because she was a Healer, that could treat the rot before it got into their blood. She'd gone for the plants and for water – clean, fresh water was something she was rarely ever allowed, and to have it without earning it first was a particular rarity.

And then there'd been a Human. He wasn't a Keeper – he didn't wear the grey uniforms or carry one of the dreaded metal poles that spat lightning and pain when it touched her skin – but a Human nonetheless. He wasn't her Master, she was _free_, and she'd attacked him. She remembered having him by his throat against the tree, ready to crush the life out of the weak little thing. Sometimes it amazed her, how such soft, breakable little things ever ruled over her kind. He'd kicked and struggled, though it brought her no issue. No Human could physically overpower her, not even at her weakest; the cowards could only ever control her with the Collar. She'd been so close to crushing the little insect, breaking him in pieces like a clay doll...but then she'd felt pain.

Another Human had come whilst she focused on her captive one, and he'd shot her with something cold and sharp in her side. And it'd made the world go fuzzy and tilted on axis in a way with which she was familiar – drugs. The sharp thing had been full of some kind of sleep draught. It had caused her limbs to become heavy, and then it'd dragged her down into sleep against her will.

Her head felt heavy and throbbed with a steady consistent ache just behind her temples. She wasn't in the forest any longer. Without opening her eyes, she extended all her other senses to try and learn as much as she could without her vision. It wasn't the Kennels, that was for certain. It was too warm, and it smelt of latex and floor cleaner and antiseptic; the Kennels smelt of fear, rot, piss, and death and were always frigidly cold. She was lying on something that was heavenly soft and warm, covered up with something else just as soft, thought it too carried that uncomfortable _clean_ scent that made her nose twitch and burn. And the Chains...she wasn't weighted down by heavy Chains binding her in place, though her broken shackles were still on her wrists. Her body was full of aches and pains, but the worst of it – the searing, fiery burn of the rot in her back and wings – drowned them all out. The rot didn't hurt so badly unless it was treated, but even then the pain was only temporary. She gritted her teeth: the stupid Humans had tried to treat the rot and had done it quite wrong. Her stomach cramped with the ever-persistent hunger, but that ache was so familiar she could set it aside; her throat cried out for water. She could hear others in the room, unfamiliar scents mingling with the too-clean scent of this _place,_ the rustle of clothes, soft breathing, and heartbeats. She counted four separate heartbeats and four separate breathing patterns – they were Humans, then.

"Has she come 'round yet?" asked one of the Humans, a male; unless she was mistaken, they were all male. The idea made her tremble inwardly. Four males alone with her in a room. What were they going to do with her? She was exhausted and battered, and even if she was stronger than them, if they used more of those drugs or one of the metal poles that spat lightning then she wouldn't be able to fight them away.

"Not yet," replied another male. She vaguely recognised his scent – he was one of the Humans from the forest, the one that'd shot her with the pointy metal thing with the sleeping draught in it. "Lester says they're not to be left alone, so at least three of you better be in here."

"Why?" asked a third. "She's just a wee little thing."

A low, wry laugh. "That's what you think," the second male answered. Ah, yes, he _was_ the one from the forest. He'd seen her nearly crush the life out of the other Human male. The memory made her claws extend and dig into the softness of the bed, envisioning doing the same to the Human's flesh. "If she comes 'round again, don't kill her. Cutter's orders." A door whispered open, then closed again as the male left.

The Healer wondered who or what a cutter was, and why were there orders not to kill her? Were they working in collaboration with the Keepers? Her claws dug deeper into the bed in raw panic, fear rising in her, pushing aside the throbbing headache, the ever-present hunger and thirst, and even the burning pain of the rot. They were to make an example of her. These strange not-quite-Keepers would drag her before the others in the Kennels and kill her in some gruesome way to ensure no others ever attempted escape again. Or if they didn't kill her, they'd find some way to break her to harness, turn her into one of the Others.

_No._

The single word rose in her being as hot as any fire, and all at once, her fear turned into rage. Anger did not come easily to her, nor did it come easy to any of her breed, but when Humans and their Chains and Collars were involved...she found that she was quite flexible. They had not bound her in Chains, she was still free. She'd tasted freedom once, even briefly, and she would quite willingly die to get it back. As the other three males came closer, she heard them start talking again.

"She _is_ small. Hardly more than skin and bones," said the third male, the one who'd first called her a little thing.

"Yeah, but from what I heard, she near choked the professor to death and the others put down a dozen men with their bare hands, and they were all just as beat as her," replied another.

There was a rustle of fabric as one of them leant closer to her, so near that the acrid burn of false scent reached her nose and she felt his breath stir her hair. "I heard they turnt to some kind of monster," the male said. "Too pretty to be a monster, you ask me."

Fury throbbed in her like a third heart, and she willed the Shift to begin, her scales and claws appearing beneath the covering. They believed her to be a monster? Very well. She would show them a monster.

"Blackwell..." said one of the males in alarm as her tail uncurled and her wings appeared.

With a snarled roar, she leapt towards the Humans with claws extended and teeth bared.


	4. Healer

**A/N: sorry it took me a few days to update this. Just got a new job, and I'm trying to get used to the hours and the being on my feet for hours at a time. Hope you'll forgive me.**

* * *

Gregory Pearson had been working in the ARC nearly as long as it'd been operational. He was pretty good mates with the rest of the blokes on his shift and had a good camaraderie with Becker and Quinn; working with them, he'd seen all manner of strange and weird shite. Dinosaurs, future creatures, insects from hell, creatures of all size and shape. But he'd never seen something quite like this. The woman they'd brought in _was_ a pretty bird, even if a bit pale and thin and in good need of a wash, but looking at her, he couldn't help but feel a sharp spike of…he wasn't sure what it was. It was just this _awareness_ that he was looking at something more dangerous than wasn't willing to call it fear…but now he definitely was.

She moved so fast she was a blur, slamming into Blackwell and throwing him backwards like he was no more than a clay doll. Blackwell was nearly two metres tall and at least 115 kilos, but she _threw_ him across the room. Pearson tried to lift his rifle, but then her wings unfurled with a snap, briefly filling his vision with brilliant scarlet, dazzling him. In that moment of hesitation, a long scaly tail – _oh sweet Jesus, that's a tail – _wrapped around his leg and yanked his feet right out from beneath him. He went to his back, and in that time, she had grabbed hold of Smythe and slung him into the wall so hard the plaster cracked. He slumped to the ground in a limp heap and didn't get back up.

And then she was on Pearson. She crouched over him like an animal, teeth bared; her teeth, oh God, her teeth, they weren't anything human at all, sharply pointed and longer than any human's. Her eyes blazed, more gold than brown, tangled hair crowded around her face, and she was growling at him, a deep, ferocious sound that rattled in his chest and made his insides feel liquid. Seeing those teeth, hearing that growl, he thought suddenly of his wife, Nina, and their new daughter, Allie, not even a year old. What would happen to them? What would the ARC tell Nina about how he died? The dragon lady – the wings, the tail, the horns, he _had_ to think of her as a dragon – let out an animal roar that made him feel as though all his bones had become gelatin. And then she was gone, pulling away and running out of the room.

Gregory Pearson let out a breath he hadn't realised he held, sucking in great hoarse gasps of air. He barely had time to thank whatever God that listened he'd be able to go home tonight before he passed out.

* * *

The door slammed open abruptly, and they all turnt towards the sound. Cutter realised abruptly it was the woman from the forest, and for a woman so thin and pale, she surely looked terrifying. Her wings trembled with rage, her tail lashing back and forth, teeth bared as a low, fierce growl surged out of her chest. The only change between here and there was the fact that she now wore a loose gown that hung off her body like a sack, shredded up the back from her wings. With the dull metal shackles still at her wrists and her teeth bared, she did look ferocious.

"Jesus…." Stephen said softly.

The soldiers lifted their weapons, and she let out a sharp snarl. "No, stop!" Cutter shouted as she tensed to spring, to attack, and the soldiers all paused, hesitating. "Lower your weapons," he said.

"Are you utterly mad?" asked Becker, hands tight around his rifle, still staring at the woman.

"No. Put them down. Slowly, now," Cutter repeated in a firm voice, still watching the woman. She was watching him right back, eyes narrowed to slits, hands curled into claws; even looking at her hands, he felt the band of fresh bruises around his throat tingling slightly. She was ready to spring, wound tight. "Captain Becker, put them down, all the men. Right now."

Stephen gritted his teeth, but then he leant down to place his pistol on the floor. Becker looked pained to do the same, but he lowered his rifle and slid the strap down his arm, allowing it to fall to the ground with a thump. Slowly, Quinn set down his own weapon as well; all around the hub, the soldiers lowered their rifles, setting them on the floor. The woman's growling faltered a moment, her expression showing surprise for a brief second. "Calm down," said Cutter softly, and her head snapped back towards him, growl rising once more. He held up both hands to show he was unarmed. "Take it easy. Nobody's going to hurt you. Just…calm down. Relax," he said in a soft voice, keeping his tone level and calm.

* * *

What trickery was this? The Healer growled low in her throat, confused by this sudden and quite unexpected turn of events. At the order of the pale-haired Human she'd nearly killed, all the not-quite-Keepers had put down their weapons, the cold things that spat metal teeth. She'd felt their bite before, and she'd dug the little metal teeth out of the flesh of her fellows before as well.

He was talking to her in a quiet voice, trying to calm her, but somehow the tone of his voice only served to infuriate her more. Did he think that she was some bumbling, incompetent Hatchling to be consoled by a gentle voice and soft words? She growled at him again; when she did, the other male, the one from the forest, shifted almost imperceptibly towards his own weapon, laid at his feet. She narrowed her eyes at him, silently daring him to try and pick up the weapon. She wondered how long it would take her to rip his arms out of their sockets. No more than five seconds, surely. Though...he was a bit muscular. Perhaps ten seconds, then.

"Easy, now," said the Human male again, and her gaze shifted to him. Why wasn't he having her killed? Surely he'd have one of the little clickers that could make the Collar electrocute her so thoroughly she was unable to move for several moments afterwards. Even now, she could see the dark bruising around his throat in the near-perfect shape of her hand...and yet he was being calm. Too calm. She didn't understand it, and it was the confusion that kept her still, holding back from leaping. "We don't want to hurt you, I promise, but you have to relax or we won't have a choice," he said urgently, keeping his voice level. "If you'll calm down, I'm sure that we could talk."

Talk? Now she _knew_ he took her for a fool. No Human ever wanted to _talk_, not with her or her kind. The only words Humans ever wanted to hear from her mouth was _yes, Mistress_ and _yes, Master,_ nothing more than that. The low growl that had faded off some came surging back as she flexed her claws.

The pale-haired one, though, didn't flinch, even though she could hear his heartrate jump. He was afraid of her. Good. Her inner predator roiled with satisfaction. "Please," he murmured quietly.

At that, she recoiled in utter shock. _Please?_ To the best of her recollection, no Human had ever said _please_ to her at any time, under any sort of circumstances. What _was_ this strange male? He didn't act like any Master she'd ever seen, didn't act like a Keeper...he didn't act like a Human at all. In fact, every thing about him was quite distinctly _un-_Human. What in the name of all the gods _was_ he?

* * *

Cutter saw her fearsome expression break into one of surprise, and he realised that he'd made some sort of headway. Now she was looking at him with distinct puzzlement, like she was looking at a curious problem she'd never seen before, head tilted slightly to the side. "Please," he repeated quietly, "we can take you to your friends. One of them is very sick, and we don't know how to help him. I imagine you could tell us. But you have to calm down first."

Her eyes narrowed slightly, but then she slowly straightened up from the animal crouch she'd shifted into. The great wine-red wings that'd been held out defencively furled in close to her back, though they didn't disappear this time, and he saw the long scaled tail slowly curling back and forth behind her.

Letting out a slow breath of relief, he said, "Your friends are down here. I can show you to them." He started to walk towards the door, but he noticed she didn't move, still watching him with an expression of confusion. Cutter wondered if she even understood English. "Come on. This way." He made a come-hither gesture with one hand. She approached slowly, cautiously, bare feet making no noise on the tiled floors.

As they walked past the flower labs, the woman abruptly stopped walking and gasped softly, walking over to press both hands to the metal door, staring into the lab. She rattled the handle ineffectually, looking to Cutter. "What is it? You can't go in there," he said, shaking his head. She narrowed her eyes at him, lips drawing back from her teeth a moment, and then she gripped the door handle in both hands. He saw the lean, whipcord muscles in her arms go taut as she strained, and then the door was forced open with a sharp hiss of air. An alarm started going off, but he hastened forward, dumbstruck, and entered a code on the keypad to silence the alarm. He couldn't believe how strong she was, able to force open a pressurised door with hardly any effort at all, the way a normal man might open an office door.

She walked forward without hesitation, walking up to a large tray of plants. They were about a foot tall and had dark purplish leaves edged in vibrant red and a dark green stem; she seized a fistful of stems, not crushing the leaves, maybe five or six plants, and with one swift movement, cut them off about two inches above the dirt. Clear fluid dripped from the severed stems.

_Oh, my God…Abby's gonna kill me,_ Cutter thought, staring at the cut stems, but then he realised that the woman was walking away. He hastened after her, confused as to how she knew where she was going. Whenever they reached a corner, she'd stop and lift her chin and sniff at the air before turning down a hall. He followed her, wondering how their roles had reversed.

When they came up to the door where one of the other strange not-quite-people were kept, she grasped the door handle again, plants in her other fist, but Cutter hastily stepped forward to open the door before she could force this one too. When his arm reached for the keypad, she recoiled sharply, staring his arm as though it was a poisonous serpent, though fascination flickered in her gaze as he entered the code, and the door hissed open on its own.

Inside, Abby stood beside the cot that held one of the strangers, a young man with a matted mess of black hair and pale white skin. There was some of that sickly black ooze covering the back of his shoulder blade, dripping down his back in slow, sluggish lines; he was growling softly, claws digging into the cot. Abby wiped a damp cloth over his forehead and shoulders with a surprisingly gentle hand, but Emily hovered nearby chewing on her nails anxiously. The two flatmates looked up. "Are those my plants?" the petite blond demanded, staring at the plants the woman held.

"Yes, but she's—" Cutter made a wordless gesture towards the other woman. She strode forward, though he noticed that she skirted around Abby and Emily with caution, not quite ever taking her eyes off them. After looking around the room for a moment, the woman opened one of the cupboards and took out a shallow metal pan, unceremoniously dumping its contents on the floor; silvery metal tools scattered across the floor with a metallic chiming, flashing bright silver. She filled the pan with water from the tap, then picked up the plants she had with her. With sure, deft motions of her hands, she stripped off all the leaves, scooped them into a small pile on the countertop, then placed the bare stems into the water. After a moment, she took them out again and wrung the stems in both hands like she was wringing water from a flannel. Some sort of clear, milky fluid oozed out of the plants, though, turning the water a cloudy sort of off-white. She did it twice more, then tossed the stems into the sink and gathered up the leaves in both hands whilst the other three people watched with a bemused curiosity. The woman shredded the dark leaves into pieces, then dropped them into the pan, mixing it in with the cloudy contents. All whilst she did this, Cutter noticed that she kept making a curious burbling and clicking noise, very softly, almost to herself.

Apparently satisfied with the mixture, the woman glanced about, then looked at the flannel Abby still held in one hand. All at once, the confident air she held seemed to wither away, and she visibly shrank in on herself, wings drawing close to her back and tail coiling tight around her own legs. Hesitantly, she extended one hand towards the flannel, making a wordless noise of obvious questioning. Baffled, Abby held out the flannel. She accepted the flannel, dipped it in the water, then slowly approached the cot where the young man lay. She lay the damp cloth across the sickly black-oozing wound on his shoulder.

He let out a ferocious snarl of obvious pain, his entire body spasming. The woman, however, didn't even flinch, leaning closer to him and making those curious burbling, clicking sounds again. Now Cutter was almost sure that it was some sort of peculiar language or some other way of communicating. Gently, she dragged the cloth over the wound, making the dark-haired man give a muffled growl, but the sickly black _stuff_ sloughed away from the wound. She dipped the flannel back in the liquid, then wiped off the wound once more, more of the oily fluid coming away with each pass. As the sickly oily stuff disappeared, Abby, Emily, and Cutter saw that the inflammation around the injury had greatly gone down, and with the lack of the obstruction, they saw the deep jagged cut that ran down his shoulder, and saw that it was now oozing a bright, gleaming silver fluid, like quicksilver. Except...there was no blood. Cutter wasn't a doctor, but he knew that if a person was cut, they would bleed. But there was no blood, no scarlet...unless...unless that silver _was_ their blood. _Silver blood?_

His gaze lifted to the woman. "What in the name of God _are_ you?"


	5. Enemies

The Humans had allowed her to treat the others with the rot, something she was enormously grateful for. It'd progressed a lot further than she thought, and if they'd gone any longer without treatment, it'd get in their blood and be fatal. But now that they were all well, she had been taken into another room.

There was a Human woman, almost abnormally tall, with curiously red hair, that'd brought her a metal tray bearing food, but she refused to touch it. The healer wasn't stupid. She knew that no matter what, no matter how kind they might appear, no Human would ever simply _give_ her anything without demanding something in return, without making her earn it first. No doubt they'd put something in it, those false medicines that made her fall unconscious for hours, and then she'd wake up back in a Cage, in new Chains...or perhaps one of the Human males would want to use her for their own personal..._entertainment_ remembered the leery way a few of the Human males had looked at her, remembered how they'd said she was _'too pretty'_ to be a monster. She was used to words like that, used to the stares and the groping hands that usually followed. A shiver crawled up her backbone, and so, even though hunger gnawed at her stomach, she had long learnt to ignore the pain and didn't touch the tray, no matter how appetizing it smelt.

The room was very plain, not unlike the Cages, except that it was far roomier; there was a table with two chairs in the middle of the room. The table was bolted to the floor, though the chairs weren't. She didn't sit in either. Chairs were for Humans, not for her. Nobody had raised a hand to her yet, and perhaps if she played the obedient Servant a while longer, she might make her escape. As she sat on the cold floor, wondering what might happen to her next, the door opened.

* * *

When Cutter walked in, he saw that the food Dr. Palmer had brought was untouched on the table, and the woman was sitting on the floor. "What are you doing down there?" he asked, though it was pointless. She'd yet to say a word to him or anyone else, and he was quite convinced she didn't know English. But she still glanced up at the sound of his voice. He pulled out one of the chairs. "You can sit up here, it's alright," he said, feeling slightly idiotic. Her gaze flicked from the chair to his face, then she hesitantly stood up and came to sit in the chair, though she clearly looked uncomfortable there. He sat down across from her, and he set a folded-up t-shirt on the table. He'd stolen it from one of the SF's, though he couldn't say which one, as they all wore the same all-black uniform at the ARC. "You can wear this since you've already ripped that to hell," he said, gesturing to the loose gown she wore. It was made of that paper-thin stuff hospitals had, and her wings had shredded it down the back so that it barely stayed on at all.

Her eyes flicked to the shirt for a moment, then a slow, hesitant hand reached out to pull it towards her, always watching him through the corner of her eye as if afraid he'd do something.

Before he could turn away, she stood up, turnt her back to him, and pulled off the shredded remains of the loose gown. He froze, staring at her naked back. What caught his attention was not the smooth expanse of pale skin or the curve of her slim form but the scars that marred her body. Pale stripes of scar tissue like lace ribbons spiraling down a canvas of flesh, stretching all the way from her shoulders to the small of her back. Some were small and thin, but others were bigger, as though made by a belt.

"Is that…a _brand?"_ he gasped in disbelief, seeing a mysterious-looking symbol seared into the flesh at the back of her shoulder. One hand lifted, reaching out towards the brand with morbid curiosity, but cool, slim fingers wrapped around his wrist, firmly but not painfully, stopping his arm. He looked to her face. She was staring straight ahead at the wall, but he saw the fear in her eyes and the tension strung tight in her shoulders, and the message was clear—_this was not part of our deal. Don't touch me._ "Alright, then. I understand," he murmured softly, pulling his wrist from her tight grip, arm lowering back to his side. "Do you have a name, lass?" he asked.

Her eyes flitted to his only for a split second as she pulled on the spare shirt, but he saw the confusion in them. "Name? What's your name? Like I'm – I'm Nick Cutter." He pointed to himself. "Nick," he said, then pointed to her, feeling a little ridiculous trying to talk to a girl that probably didn't even understand a word of sodding English.

When she didn't say anything, he let out a sigh and looked at the untouched tray of food that sat on the table. Her eyes kept flicking towards it, obviously hungry, but she refused to touch it; Palmer had said before all of them showed signs of malnourishment. And yet, they weren't eating…. He saw her eyes flick back towards him, a flash of clear mistrust in her dark gaze, and he abruptly realised why she wasn't eating. "There's nothing in it," he reassured her. What sort of hell had she come from that her first instinct when someone gave her food when she was starving was to suspect it was drugged? "Here, look." He pulled the tray towards him. It wasn't much, something simple so as to not upset her stomach—a bowl of light broth, some toast, and a glass of water. He took a spoonful of the broth, a bite of the toast, and then a drink from the glass. "There. See?"

She stared at him closely for a moment, gaging him, as if expecting him to suddenly drop dead or start coughing up blood. When he didn't, she snatched the tray back towards her and fell on the food voraciously. The toast was gone in barely three bites, and the broth followed quick after it. Despite the quick way she ate, she didn't raven, not a drop or crumb left behind, practically licking the bowl clean. She didn't waste any time over it. "Easy now, or you'll make yourself sick," he said gently, but she seemed not to hear him—or perhaps was just ignoring him seeing as she didn't speak English. A part of him, though, wondered…did she eat quickly because she was used to having food taken from her if she took too long over it? Did she take such care not to waste any because she was used to going without? From the way her wrist bones were clearly visible and her face was almost skeletal gaunt, Cutter figured the answer to be yes on both counts.

* * *

The healer wasn't stupid. She spoke the Human-tongue quite well, all things considered, even though she despised their rough, tripping words and harsh, clipped syllables that always felt like she was trying to swallow the sounds instead of letting them flow like her native tongue. But she feigned ignorance anyways, putting on a puzzled front when the Humans spoke at her, acting as though she didn't understand. If they believed her ignorant of their words, then they might just be more free with them.

Her stomach was full for the first time in…she didn't even know how long; it was a little uncomfortable, but a wonderful feeling nonetheless. She licked all traces of the strange coloured liquid from the bowl, wondering why it tasted faintly of meat without having any meat in it. But then she froze, her hands going so tight around the bowl that the ceramic creaked distress. He was just going to give her food? Just like that? She didn't _understand_ this strange Human, who didn't refer to himself as 'Master' like the others had, didn't try to break her with the dreaded little Clicker. Why was he doing this? Why was he being so damnably kind? And what would she have to do to earn it? Fear clenched in her belly to the point of making her want to be sick, but her starved body refused to let go of the first nourishment it'd received in too long.

"What's wrong?" asked the Human male sitting across the table from her, and her gaze flitted back towards him for a second. He had thick, rich hair the colour of old gold, eyes that were the pale blue of sword steel, and a peculiar accent to his words that differed from the other Humans. He must've noticed her baulk, and he was glancing concernedly towards the tight grip that she had on the bowl; she forcibly relaxed her hands before she could shatter the dish.

Putting on her confused face once again, she glanced up at him and asked in her own language, _"Why do you keep up these games with me, creature? Why not end it now?"_

* * *

"What's wrong?" Cutter asked when the girl-woman's face paled and her hands tightened on the bowl to the point of almost cracking it, and a flicker of raw fear passed through her eyes for a brief instant.

She relaxed her grip on the dish though it seemed a forced effort to do so, then looked up at him in confusion and spoke in another language. Her tone suggested it was a question, but the words were unlike anything he'd ever heard. It was a near fluid sound, one syllable melting into the next; it was a musical sort of burbling interspersed with soft clicks and warbles. He didn't recognise it as any language he'd ever heard, but it sounded absolutely beautiful.

"So, I guess that you _don't_ speak English," he sighed quietly in response to her question – if it was a question at all. His gaze drifted down slightly to the collar fastened around her neck. It seemed more like a mark of enslavement than any sort of fashion statement, a heavy, industrial thing made of metal and leather with an engraved metal tag dangling from the front of it. His eyes went back to her wrists, to the still-raw, angry red wounds encircling them, so badly chafed that there was hardly any skin left. Stephen had to use power tools to get the damn things off the other ones, since they were all unconscious and couldn't fight back, solid, heavy things with jagged edges. She might not've spoken English, but that alone spoke loud enough – she'd been a slave in whatever time she was from, her and the others. But even if the shackles had come off, any one of them reacted violently whenever they tried to grab the collars. "Won't you let us try and take that off?" he asked, reaching up to lightly touch his own throat.

* * *

_Take it off? Remove the Collar, is he soft-minded?_ she thought in disbelief, staring at him openly despite the warning that said she played a dangerous game. What sort of idiotic Human suggested such a thing, or even _considered_ the idea of simply _taking off_ the Collar? Didn't he know anything at all? As such as she loathed and detested the Collar, the heavy weight of it and what it represented, it was crafted from a mix of Human sciences and the magic of her own people; it couldn't just be _taken off._ If it was tampered with or if someone tried to force it open, it would kill her.

Mirroring the Human's action, she lifted a hand to her throat, gently touching the always-cold metal of the Collar, resting above the broad leather strap fastened beneath it to keep it from cutting into her skin. Then her gaze rose back to his, and even though it was dangerous, her lips drew away from her teeth, and she hissed at him.

* * *

Cutter blinked in shock as she hissed at him with a low furious sound. It was a low, harsh noise like the buzz of swarming wasps, air spitting out through her clenched teeth, which she'd bared at him like an animal. There was something odd about her teeth, too – on top and bottom, instead of normal lateral incisors, her teeth were sharply pointed, like a second set of canine teeth. "I-I guess not, then." He sat back in the chair, watching her for a moment. He simply didn't understand how such a thin, weary-looking woman could possibly be so dangerous. It didn't seem possible. Without her wings or her tail or her scales, she looked completely normal, nothing fearsome about her. But his throat still ached from the bruises, and his back hurt still from being thrown against the tree. He looked at her slender limbs, trying to reconcile the enormous strength with the slender arm. Saw the pale skin and tried to match it with the ruby-red scales that were hard as steel. "What are you?" he asked quietly.

Her eyes flicked up to his and held. It was the first time that she'd ever actually _looked_ at him for longer than a half-second at a time, and he felt a sudden knot settle in his stomach. Her eyes were a rather lovely shade of brown, flecked with gold, but a cold, alien intelligence shone from their depths. He didn't know what it was, but it for damn sure wasn't human. He'd seen eyes like that only once before – when he'd stared down a fully grown raptor in the shopping centre. They were the eyes of a predator, something far more dangerous than any human, full of a cold, merciless calculation that said she wouldn't hesitate to kill him, or anything else. Cutter felt a chill sweep through him, and he clenched both hands into fists as if to hide the fact that his palms had become quite sweaty.

She leant forward slowly, never blinking or taking her gaze from him. And Cutter thought that he heard something in his head, a woman's voice underlain with an animal snarl of primal power, like the echo of a thunderstorm, but so faint it was just the barest brush of breath. Her lips never moved, but he still heard it.

**_Dragon._**

He shot to his feet and all but ran from the room.


	6. Awake

Once the door had hissed shut, Cutter leant over with both hands braced on his knees, trying to breathe steadily even though his heart felt like it might break through his ribs, and a sense of sheer _panic_ made him feel like running very, very far away. Oh, God, what had he gotten into now? This wasn't right. It wasn't _possible._ Even now, he could still hear that faint not-quite-voice hissing across the peripherals of his mind. _Dragon._ Dragon. What the hell was that supposed to mean? His mind snapped suddenly to the hard scales, the reptilian tail and bat-like wings. No. No bloody way. Dinosaurs were one thing, but...dragons? No. Just..._no._

Straightening up a little shakily, he headed back down the hallway in search of the rest of his team. They seriously needed to talk.

* * *

"So, has our little prisoner woken up yet?" Stephen queried as he walked into the room.

"Nope," Abby answered. "Cutter went to talk to the woman, the one that nearly strangled him. Becker's got soldiers with the rest of them. What happened to the ones that were watching her?"

The hunter pulled up a chair beside hers and sat down. "Blackwell won't be coming back to work. Apparently, she threw him with enough force that it ruptured his internal organs and fractured his spine. Permanent disability. He won't be fit for duty. Smythe has a few broken ribs and a concussion, but he'll be back eventually," he answered. "And Pearson's fine. Dunno why, but apparently she just scared the piss out of him and left him alone." It didn't make a lick of sense that the woman would nearly kill two soldiers and leave the third without a scratch, but he couldn't figure out what her purpose for it could be no matter how hard he tried.

Abby whistled through her teeth. "Damn."

"No kidding."

The door swung open, and Cutter walked in, looking unusually ruffled, a little pale in the face. Stephen didn't fail to notice how the professor's eyes instantly fixed on the unconscious young man on the cot, the tension that came to his shoulders. "The two of you, come with me. There's something we've got to talk about," he said in a stiff voice, not looking away from the prone figure.

Confused, Abby and Stephen stood up and followed him out of the room. "What's going on, Cutter?"

"Not now. Just...find the others," the professor answered.

Stephen had a vague curling sensation in the pit of his stomach that there was something very serious going on.

* * *

The Healer looked up from where she sat as the door of her temporary Cage opened once more and the pale-haired one came in. He had said his name was Nick Cutter, and she wondered if he was the same one that'd given the orders not to kill her. She knew that she'd made a dangerous move by mindspeaking with him, but it had obviously scared him witless, and the amusement it brought was well worth it. Though now he was accompanied by two more Humans: the one that'd shot her with the sleeping draught in the forest and a small female with a short mop of the palest hair that she'd ever seen, nearly white in colour.

This time, the Human didn't waste any time. "What are you?" he demanded. "And I know you can understand me. I heard it."

Ah, so her ploy was ended. The other two were looking at him a little peculiarly, as though they suspected him soft-minded, but neither said anything; she wondered if that meant he was their leader. His eyes narrowed at her slightly; she knew that he was fast losing patience with her. Even though the ragged remains of her pride demanded that she hold silence, forcibly ingrained subservience argued it wise not to anger a Human, even if he did behave unlike any Human she'd seen. "I told you what I am," she answered. "I am a dragon."

* * *

When she spoke, her voice was different than it was before. No more of the fluid, graceful almost-singing words. When she spoke English, it came out low and slightly husky, laced with a peculiar accent he attributed to the other language she spoke. And she wasn't looking at him again. She always seemed to look at a point just off his left shoulder. Cutter felt his hands curl into fists at his sides. "Tell me the truth. There's no such thing as dragons. What are you?"

For a second, just a second, the cool facade she wore broke, and a look of utter shock fell across her face before it disappeared again. "I-I _am_ telling you the truth. I am a dragon," she reiterated, then after a slight pause, she added, "Master."

_That_ one gave him pause. Master? Why would she call him...? His gaze flicked to the collar at her throat, and anger curled tight in his stomach. "What do you mean, you're a dragon? Dragons aren't real. And you look pretty damn human to me," Cutter said, not quite able to keep the heat out of his voice. He was getting the feeling that this woman knew a hell of a lot more than she let on and was playing him for a fool, and it made him _pissed._

A look of panic was beginning to come to her face. "I am real," she answered, a slight tremble in her words. "I am only in human form."

"And...what? You can change forms if you want to?" he asked derisively. He might've seen something like it before, but...dragons? Really? Despite the fact that he'd seen her ability to make the scales appear and disappear, he wasn't so stupid as to believe anyone could just up and transform into a great bloody dragon if they wanted to.

But she seemed to believe it was the truth, and even now she was nodding. "Yes, Master," she answered. Then she paused with a small frown. "What do you mean there is no such thing as dragons?"

"I mean, they're a myth. A legend. Fiction, not reality," Cutter answered, leaning forward over the table slightly. "And don't call me Master, either."

Her eyes were widening, face going white. "The war has not yet happened?" she whispered.

"What are you talking about? What war?"

She was murmuring in her own language again, though more to herself than him, but then he rapped his knuckles against the tabletop sharply for her attention. To his shock, she leapt halfway out of her skin and slid down in her chair with a whimper, ducking her head. It was as if she expected a blow to rain down on her at any given moment; the transformation to fearsome to cowering was astonishing. "I-I am no myth. We are not legends. I-I could show you if you wish it, Master," she said in a small, tremulous voice.

"Don't call me that. I'm Nick Cutter, I'm not master of anything," he answered, feeling chagrined to be called such a thing. "And you say you could show us?" he asked; she gave a tiny nod. "Then show us."

"Not here," she murmured. "It is too..." Her eyes flicked around the room. "...small. There is not room enough."

Before Cutter could ask just how much room would be enough, there was a deep roar that shook in his very bones and made his heart rise up into his throat. "What in the _hell_ was _that?"_ Stephen said, alarm colouring his words.

The woman didn't look at all alarmed, simply glanced up at Cutter and said calmly, "He is awake."

* * *

Hybrids were uncommon creatures, unique and prized depending upon their heritage. Very rarely did the breeds intersect and even more rarely did these intersections produce progeny. He was one of those rare progenies of one of those rare unions. His father had been a firebreather of the oldest lines; he had died in the War, but was remembered her still, even though memories of him were that of a Hatchling, blurry and vague, a great towering presence of heat and love, as crimson as the sunrise and just as awesomely powerful. His mother, though, was a different breed altogether: a shadowrunner. Of all ten of the dragon races, shadowrunners were the rarest, as they bred seldom and had only a single Hatchling at a time. He remembered his mother somewhat better, as she'd been kept in the Kennels with him until he was old enough to be taken from her. He remembered peppermint-scented breath and warm scales the colour of platinum, rippling with iridescent sheen whenever light shone upon her, silver eyes and a low voice singing soft lullabies he remembered still.

He kept his father's tined horns and ability to breathe fire, not to mention the love of heat and stronger-than-normal scales, but he still had the long, narrow wings, stealthy nature, and disorienting fog of his mother's breed. His colouring was unique, though, a solid ebon-black with the darkest burgundy tipping his horns and spines as well as the edges of his long wings; most dragons had patterned hides in different colours. He was a lightweight, but he made up for that small size with quickness and stealth. But no matter how rare or prized a hybrid like him might be, any Master or Mistress that might want him saw the red band on his Collar and passed him by.

Because red meant he was dangerous. That he'd killed before and was like to do it again. Even a rabid dog was as dangerous to its owner as it was to its enemies, and he did not play the Servant very well.

After they'd escaped from the Kennels, after the running, after being captured by those strange not-Keepers, he slept. The rot had left him with a fever that drove him to exhaustion, near to madness at times. Sometimes he dreamt of things that weren't really there, relived things from his past that he'd never want to go through again. He dreamt of his father and the War, being huddled against his parent as fire so hot it was white filled the sky, heat on the backs of his ears. Ash raining from the sky. Silver blood spilt on blackened ground. The Collar being pulled tight around his throat. Masters wielding the dreaded little Clickers that forced his submission with pain so horrible it could barely be understood. Hard hands that left bruises on his skin and tore his clothes away from him, harsh voices hissing foul words in his ear.

But then there was a cold touch, easing the fire that seared in him. He knew fire intimately, knew how it felt to have flames tickle along his hide and feel their heat roil in his chest, but this was not his fire. This was the burn of fever, and it was worse than any other sort of heat. But this touch was gentle and cold and damp, helping to soothe away the searing pain of it. He'd felt it across his face and on his back where the agony was worst. And a scent that he didn't recognise. Not his healer friend nor any of his other fellows. It was soft and musky, without any of the false scents Humans wore, the ones that burnt in his nose and made his head ache, and had something reptilian to it. Not a dragon's scent, no, but something of the ilk. And such a gentle touch... He couldn't remember the last time anyone had ever been so gentle with him, except for his vague memories of Mother. Humans weren't the gentle sort. He'd seen them at their best, and even then they were vicious. So he'd reached out with what little strength he had to bring this mysterious caretaker closer, trying to hold on to whatever little bit of safety he could before the Keepers returned for him. He was already on the red list. This would send him to his death for certain.

The cold had gone, and fire had returned after that. But not the uncomfortable searing burn of fever. No, this was the deep, tingling flame of his wounds being disinfected. Ah...the healer had returned. It was an agony that near brought him to tears, but over the rushing in his ears, he heard her soft voice murmuring comfort to him as she cleaned the rot from his shoulder. Once the burning faded, he was left with a cool, blissful darkness that let him sleep for the first time in days.

He didn't know how long he slept, but when he woke, he knew in an instant that he wasn't safe. All he could smell was Humans; the thick, gagging odour was everywhere, mingling with the harsh, clean scent of whatever this _place_ was. The walls were all bare and white, as were the floors, and everything he saw seemed to be white, grey, silver or black, a terribly monochrome environment. He could not see the sky or feel the earth. His friends, the few he'd escaped with, were nowhere to be seen.

Fear and panic washed over him. Where were the others? Were they back in the Kennels? Had the Keepers taken them in Chains again? Oh, gods above, the Keepers had probably taken the others and killed them in some terrible way to ensure there would never be another escape, or had done something else even more horrible. He had learnt a long time ago that, when it came to Keepers and the torture they procured for him and his kind, death was a kindness and not a threat. And even though hunger left him dizzy and his shoulder still burned with pain, he threw himself off the narrow cot that smelt of chemicals and Shifted.

The room was not made for a dragon his size, but the walls were not strong. He could shove his way through them if need be, and less room meant that the Humans could not force entry without becoming trapped in close quarters with him. He heard the heavy, terrible familiar sound of boots thundering up the hallway, the metallic rattle of the metal things that spat steel teeth. The Keepers coming to subdue him, drag him away to his punishment.

They would not have it. He'd felt his freedom once, and he would not bear the Chains again. He let out a bellow of challenge, feeling the heat build in his throat and stomach. As a hybrid, he had two useful weapons at his disposal. Like his mother, glands in his throat could produce a thick fog that enduced a sense of confused euphoria in Humans, disorienting them, but like his father, another set of similar glands produced volatile chemicals what became flames when exhaled. Lowering one shoulder, he smashed through the door, removing half the wall in the process, and turning his head down the corridor, he faced the strange black-clad Keepers. His jaw opened.

Fire filled the corridor.


	7. Shift

Heat and smoke poured through the ARC hallways, followed by the panicked yelling of men. As Cutter, Abby, and Stephen ran up, the woman walked behind them calmly. Soldiers were being pulled away with their uniforms burnt half away, skin red and blistered underneath, burnt black in some places, screaming in pain or limp with shock. There was a ferocious roaring coming from the hall, followed by what looked like a solid wall of flame roaring outwards from the end of the hall. These flames weren't red-orange-yellow, though. Instead, they were a brilliant violet colour, laced with black and deep blue, and so hot that he could feel their heat from where he stood nearly a dozen feet away. Between blasts of flame, the soldiers not being carted away by medics would rattle of rounds down the corridor towards whatever was on the other end. "What the hell is that?" Stephen cried.

The woman came close, appearing entirely at ease with the fact that an inferno was being blasted up the hallway. "He woke up without knowing where he was or where his friends were. No doubt he believes you Keepers come to take him to death," she answered in her low voice, then looked over at Cutter. "Call these Keepers away, Master, and I will calm him."

"Not Master, just Cutter," he said automatically, then coughed as black smoke poured out of the corridor. "Becker! Quinn!" he shouted. The two men darted over, both of their faces streaked with soot, cinders having burnt small holes in their clothes. "Have your men stand down. She can talk to him," he said, jerking a thumb over at the woman—he made a mental note to ask her name.

"It's not a fucking person, Cutter, there's no _talking—_Jesus!" Becker shouted. "Hold fire, hold fire!"

None of them noticed it, but the woman had slid around them, managing to slide around the soldiers without a noise to approach the hallway. She didn't appear at all afraid of the fire nor the terrible roaring that echoed up the corridor so loud that the windows trembled, and it felt like their teeth rattled in their sockets. The soldiers backed off, looking confused and awed at the same time. Who the hell was this pale, barefoot, thin woman that was daring enough to go forward without a weapon?

* * *

She had known this dragon for a long time, almost as long as she lived. She met him not long after they'd been separated from their mothers in the Kennels; he had been born wild, just as she had, and his father had been lost in the War, just as hers had. They were a lot alike, and they'd become friends as Hatchlings. Sometimes they went months, even years without seeing each other when they were taken by different Masters and Mistresses, or perhaps put in different parts of the Kennels. He was a hybrid, a rare creature, and she knew that he was still wild, in his hearts. It was only proved after he'd attacked a Master and been put on the red list. But he only breathed fire out of fear, not anger or aggression. He must've been terrified, though it could easily be mistaken for rage by the Humans; she could smell fear, though, a harsh, sour kind of scent.

The heat was intense, even for her, and the smoke blurred her vision as she approached, the heavy reek of sulphur hanging heavy in the air. She could feel him growling, the vibrations shaking in the floor, up through the bottoms of her feet into her legs, as well as in her chest. _"Brother, kind brother, can you hear me?"_ she called out in her language.

All at once, his growls dropped away. She heard his heavy, panting breaths, and with a keen healer's ear, she heard a harshness in his breath that suggested his lungs were not in best of shape. It was not the smoke, for no firebreather, hybrid or not, was harmed by smoke. The damp lung, perhaps. Not uncommon when firebreathers were kept in cold, humid places like the Kennels. _"Sister?"_ he rumbled back after a pause.

_"Yes, brother, it's me. Take ease, now. These are not Keepers."_

_"What are they, then? Where are we? Where are the others?"_ he demanded, the smell of his fear mingling with the sulphur, though it could not be detected by the Humans' second-rate sense of smell.

_"Take ease,"_ she repeated. _"The others are safe and well, resting still."_ Knowing that the Humans could not understand her, she called out to him, _"Brother, we are not home. I do not know how, but the Gateway, it took us to another time instead of another place. The War has not happened yet. These Humans do not know what we are. They still believe us legends. They have no Kennels, no Chains, and no Keepers."_

There was an endless eternity of silence, broken only by his harsh breathing. She still could not see him for all the smoke that clouded the hallway. _"Then why not kill them?"_ he asked at last, his voice dipping back down into a low, thunderous growl.

Yes, he was still wild in his hearts. He was gentle by nature, but all the torment inflicted on him over the years had forced him to become aggressive, fierce, and ruthless, though she hoped his gentleness was still there beneath the pitted steel skin he'd grown. _"Because we are but seven in a world populated by seven billion enemies,"_ she answered. _"Even if we kill these ones, we will not be able to survive."_

He growled again, though now the sound was more contemplative. _"Do you trust them?"_

_"Trust them? No. How could I ever? But this…I do not trust them, but we do _need_ them, at least for now,"_ she called back softly.

_"Very well, then. I cannot trust Humans…but I will trust you, sweet sister,"_ he answered.

_"The Humans believe us myths. Let me speak to them, then I want you to come out, show them your true form,_" she murmured and heard a low growl of agreement. Turning around, she saw that the soldiers had backed away, and the Humans were there, the one called Cutter, the other male and the pale-haired female. There was another male with a shock of curiously red hair and one with dark hair that didn't seem to move at all. "He will come out, but you must not harm him. You will burn if you do," she cautioned them.

"All men, hold fire," said the not-Keeper with the strangely unmoving hair. Their leader?

She glanced back at the pale-haired Cutter. "You wished for me to show you? You will be shown," she murmured, then called out to her friend. She heard the dry rustle of scales as he uncurled himself from whatever corner he'd gotten himself into, rough breathing coming closer.

* * *

Cutter could hear the noise of something big coming towards them, moving down the hallway, and again, his heart relocated to somewhere in his throat, and his stomach curled in knots, hands sweating again. He could see something through the haze of smoke, and he let out a choked gasp in disbelief as a great scaly…thing moved forward from the corridor into the full light of the ARC, and he got his first real look at it in proper light. He hadn't believed any of it before now – dragons? Dinosaurs were one thing, but _dragons?_ Get serious. But this…there was no mistaking this creature for anything but just that – a dragon.

_Bloody huge_ was his first thought. It was easily larger than even a Clydesdale horse, nearly two metres tall at the shoulder at the shoulder, and also quite long, a solid five metres at least, though almost half that length was its sinuous tail. It was serpentine in shape, having a graceful, arching neck and a sleek body. Its muscles were sinewy and ropy beneath its hide, quivering with a wild, feral power despite a life of malnourishment. Four long, muscular legs supported a lean body, each ending in a paw that was alike to a human hand in the way that it possessed four clawed fingers and thumb, about the size of a dustbin lid. Its scales were ebon-black, polished volcanic glass, but its plated underbelly held a tint of rich, dark red like fine wine. Scarlet tinged the edges of the great wings furled in close to its back, as well as tipped its curved horns and the sharp spikes bristling from its backbone in a row from the base of its skull to the tip of its tail. Its head was sleek and streamlined, with a slender, narrow muzzle with something like whiskers at the very end of it, quivering slightly. The muzzle lead back into glowing gold eyes below a pair of comically large, frilled ears between which sat a pair of black horns that were tined like the antlers of a stag, giving the appearance of being delicate yet still sharp as a rapier, with the potential of being deadly if used properly; each slim, sharp tine was tipped in deep burgundy-red. Small, short spines fringed its lower jaw, also dark red. Smoke curled from between its teeth, small sparks lacing each exhale. There was a long, jagged cut on the back of one shoulder, oozing bright silver across its scaly back.

"Oh…my…God," Abby whispered.

The dragon's head whipped towards her, ears cocked forward. Everyone went still as it moved towards her slowly, humming with tension as it approached. Abby went pale but she didn't move even as her hands visibly trembled. She went, if possible, even more still as the dragon extended one of its forelegs. The paw was remarkably alike a human hand, with four fingers and an opposable thumb, though each digit was tipped with a great, curved claw that looked like carved onyx; with incredible delicacy, it hooked the very tip of one claw in the belt of her loose cargos and drew her closer. Its nostrils flared as it _smelled_ her. "What are you, little Human?" the dragon asked, words quite clearly articulated past a muzzle full of sharp, curved teeth, in a deep voice underlain with a low rumble of a growl. "Why do I know your scent?"

* * *

Abby couldn't _believe_ how close she was to the dragon's head, which was easily bigger than a horse's. She could see the scales that were so dark and close they were nearly indistinguishable from each other, count each of the tiny spines along its lower jaw, and feel the tickle of hot breath washing over her skin. One of the large, frilled ears had a notch taken out of it. She could feel the curve of its claw pressed against her lower belly, still hooked in her trousers. "Why do I know your scent?" it – _he_ – repeated, as the voice was fairly male to her ears.

"I-I looked after you when you had a fever," she mumbled out quickly, but she didn't know how in the hell that pale, skinny young man she'd washed with a cold flannel had become _this_ giant thing.

The incredible mobile, scaly face showed an expression of surprise. "You? Why don't you smell like a Human?" he asked, sniffing her again.

For a moment, she foundered, baffled, but then remembered that she'd been spending a lot of time in the menagerie with their newest additions: a large nodosaur that Cutter identified as a Gastonia, and a juvenile Chasmosaurus, a kind of ceratopsian. "I'm—I look after animals. I'm a herpetologist," she answered. "I-I study reptiles. My name's Abby Maitland. D-do you have a name?"

The dragon unhooked his claw from her trousers and leant away, backing up. She couldn't much tell his feelings by looking at his scaled face, but she suspected that he was thrown by her question, though she didn't know why. The woman stepped forward and murmured something in that burbling, clicking language of theirs.

* * *

_"Remember, brother, that they are not the Humans we know. They do not know us as reality, only legend still,"_ the healer reminded him quietly. She couldn't remember the last time a Human had ever asked her for her name, and she knew he didn't either. No Master or Mistress ever asked their names, just gave them orders.

He looked down at the white-haired little female, curious though his face didn't show it. Around them, the other Humans were staring with open-mouthed awe. The healer wondered how they would react if she told them that he was a lightweight dragon, the smallest sort other than couriers, and nowhere near the size of their military companion. "I am Connor," he said at last, which surprised her; she hadn't thought he'd give his name.

Reaching up, she lightly patted his flank again. _"Shift back, my friend. Make them believe us,"_ she murmured.

He gave a sharp snort of acquiescence, backing up a little further and Shifted forms. The magic that allowed a dragon to appear as a Human was as instinctive to them as breathing or flying was. It didn't require any teaching. All they had to do was be reminded of it, and the magic would awaken on its own. Of course, the more skilled an individual was at controlling that instinctive magic, the finer control they had over their Shifting forms. The process could either be smooth and fluid, nearly instant, or slow and somewhat peculiar. They could also control how much of their true forms could show through the Human guise in their half-and-half forms. Connor was one of the most skilled she'd ever known, and his Shift appeared almost instant. The Humans could not see it happen, it happened too quickly for their eyes. His true form seemed to simply shrink inwards. Bones liquefied and reshaped, scales softened into delicate skin. Organs rearranged, horns became hair, and muscles reformed to a new skeleton. They only saw the very end of the Shift, where he straightened up as a Human, his tail and wings being the last to disappear, simply melding back into his skin. In Human form, he was tall and lean, with overlong black hair that hung nearly to his shoulders, pale white skin, and nearly black eyes.

As he straightened up, the healer stepped back to where the other Humans stood, still gaping with open-mouthed awe. When she touched Cutter's arm, he jumped slightly, staring at her with new apprehension, as if he expected her to suddenly sprout her own wings and tail, though she wouldn't. She did not want to ruin the new shirt. "Might I suggest that you take us to the others? Unless you would like a repeat of this incident?" she told him softly.

Dazedly, he nodded, still staring at Connor. "Yeah. Good idea," he agreed.


	8. Sanctuary

"What, erm...what's your name, then?" Cutter asked in a low voice as they came into a room where one of the...dragons – it was still hard to use that word seriously, even in his head – was still asleep. It was a young girl, probably still in her teens at the very most, woefully thin and pale, with a mess of hair he supposed was brown when it was clean. He saw with no small amount of horror that her slim little body was just as littered with scars and burns as both Connor and the woman.

The woman lifted her head slightly to glance at him through her lashes. "I am Claudia," she answered in a soft voice. As she reached down to lightly stroke some of the matted, dirty hair out of the sleeping girl's face, she said quietly, "I frightened you earlier, did I not? When I told you what I was?"

Cutter shoved both hands in his pocket. "I have to admit, as far as strange shite goes, you being some sort of shapeshifting dragon lady...that's not exactly at the top of the list. But hearing another person's voice in my head..." He shrugged in what he hoped was a nonchalant sort of way. "That's pushing it just a bit."

She gave a small smile, looking down at the prone form of her sleeping fellow. The girl hadn't woken yet, but she was starting to shift around a bit more. "I am sorry. I did not think you'd even be able to hear me," she answered. He must've looked confused, because she went on, "There are only a rare few Humans that are able to hear a dragon mindspeak. Your minds are not...open enough."

He might've been insulted at that, but at that moment, the young girl on the cot let out a ferocious snarl, lashing out with one hand, and Cutter let out a startled cry of pain as the tips of her claws raked over his side, ripping through his shirt like gossamer. Had he been any closer, he might've been eviscerated. Staggering backwards with a hand to his side, he felt blood beginning to run over his fingers. Claudia stood up, catching the girl's forearms in both hands, not touching her chafed-raw wrists, and began speaking in a low soothing voice, the soft burbling-clicking noises instead of English now. The girl opened her eyes slowly, squinting in the harsh light, muttering in reply. Her gaze shifted from Claudia over to Cutter, and her lips drew away from her teeth with a ferocious growling hiss. Claudia murmured in an urgent tone, drawing the young girl's attention back to her. After another moment of the exchange – the girl never looked away from Cutter for more than a few seconds at a time – Claudia released her arms and helped her to sit up. "It might be best if you saw to that bleeding, Master," she said in soft English without looking away from the girl.

"Just Nick," he corrected reflexively on his way out the door.

* * *

_"He gives his name so easily?"_ the young she-dragon asked as she watched the Human leave the room, eyes slitted against the harshness of the lights; it was even worse than in the Kennels.

_"Yes,"_ Claudia replied softly. _"The Gateway has brought us into the past, before the War. These humans still believe we are myths, not reality, and there are no Kennels, no Keepers."_

For a moment, her eyes went wide. _"Truly?"_ she asked, and Claudia nodded. _"Then...we are free?"_

_"I...am not certain of that yet,"_ she admitted reluctantly. She didn't know what these strange Humans were going to do with them. Pushing the thought aside at the moment, with a well-trained Healer's eye, she began to look over her young companion, lightly running her fingers over exposed skin. She never understood why Humans were always so ashamed of their bodies and insisted upon wearing the strange cloth coverings. They were such odd creatures, sometimes. For all the years she had lived with them, she still found them utterly baffling at times. At times, they seemed so powerful, harsh and cruel Masters, that could strike out with an unbelievable force, but at other times, they were little more than soft, bumbling little creatures, as ignorant as Hatchlings, stumbling around in the dirt. _"Does this hurt?"_ she asked, applying gentle pressure on the girl's back where her wing joints connected, and she flinched away. _"A sprain, then. You ought not fly for a day or so, let it heal."_

_"Where are the others?"_ the young one asked, scratching vigorously at her arm where the rot had been until Claudia admonishingly swatted her hand away.

_"Connor is rousing them,"_ she replied. _"Come. Once they are all awake, we'll find some food."_

_"And a bath,"_ the girl added.

_"Yes. And a bath."_

* * *

"This is madness. Utter sodding madness," Stephen muttered to himself, running one hand back through his hair as he paced like an animal in a cage too small.

"You saw the same thing we all did, Stephen," Abby said, sitting on a table. She had a look on her face that was a mixture of confusion, worry, and curiosity, thinking over these new arrivals. She was replaying the earlier scene in her mind, seeing that great dragon up and transform into a tall, gangly young man in the blink of an eye, wondering how it was even physically possible. It denied every law of physics she knew, yet she couldn't think of any other explanation for it.

Cutter appeared in the doorway, then, looking a little pale in the face. "C'mon, you two. They're awake," he summoned. Abby and Stephen both rose and followed after him as he walked down the hall, noticing how he seemed to favour his left side.

In the central hub, the seven time-travelers stood huddled around each other like the survivors of a shipwreck, eyes darting nervously. Only Claudia and Connor seemed somewhat calmer, though they too kept eyeing the SAS men that were gathered all around, more than usual, hands resting readily on their high-powered guns. Becker and Quinn had taken up flanking positions beside Lester, who stood looking coolly implacable as always. Looking at it, Cutter was reminded uneasily of the tense scene just before the shootout in an old Western film. Except that he had a feeling if things did turn south, there wouldn't be six-shooters coming out – there'd be assault rifles and half-tonne firebreathing monsters.

"So," began Lester abruptly, the sharp tone of his voice making the dragons visibly wince. "I see that you've taken it upon yourself to adopt a new pack of strays, Professor. And from what've I heard so far, they are quite...interesting characters." The frosty notes layering the words said that he knew as much as any of them did about the time-travellers at the moment and he was pissed off beyond measure having not been told right off.

Still, Cutter couldn't help but to fire back, "Yeah, the west corridor's gonna need some repair work."

The flippancy did nothing but stoke Lester's ire, and the suited man's lip curled in a sneer. "I'll be sure to mark it down," he spat. "Now what exactly, pray tell, do you intend to do with _them?"_ At the last word, he threw a sharp glare towards the seven people still looking scared witless.

Before Cutter had the chance to answer, he saw something that disturbed him as much as it infuriated him. When Lester turned his frosty glare towards the dragons, they all visibly recoiled, shrinking in on themselves, but Connor, Claudia, a dark-haired, olive-skinned woman, and a young black woman actually sank to their knees, heads bowed forward with arms behind their backs, one hand clutching the opposite wrist. The other two blokes and the one girl were on their feet still, but they too had sort of hunched over, half-crouching, as if barely able to stay upright at all. It was like – Cutter's stomach churned at the thought – they were waiting to be beaten, to be _punished_. Again, his gaze flicked to the heavy collars at their necks and the raw, bloody skin where their shackles had been, and his traitorous mind then conjured up images of the numerous scars across Claudia's back and the brand seared into the pale flesh of her shoulder.

Lester, for the first time since Cutter met him, was visibly thrown by this reaction, and even more remarkably, was rendered quite speechless. The suited man knew that he was a well-frightening man. He had mastered the ability to glare with such frosty intensity that it still made interns break out in a sweat in under thirty seconds, but never in his entire career had anyone actually _knelt on the floor._ For the first time, he actually _looked_ at the seven people who were still quivering and shaking, awaiting...something, he didn't know what, though he wasn't even sure he wanted to know. They were all woefully thin, he could tell simply by the way the clothes hung on their frames, and filthy, as though they'd been put through a tumbler of dirt, gravel, and ground glass. They visibly trembled, like dry leaves in a strong wind, and he could almost feel the sheer _terror_ coming off them. Then his ears noticed a noise so low it was almost inaudible: a wordless keening whimper of fear vocalised from seven separate throats.

Standing within earshot of the miserable sound, Cutter, Abby, and even the ever-stoic Stephen himself looked positively sick. Much to everyone's surprise, it was Stephen that moved first, approaching slowly and cautiously, like he was coming towards a wild animal – and in a sense, he supposed he really was. Whatever bit of resilience holding up the other three caved, and the three standing dragons sank down to their knees at his approach as well. Acting solely on what he knew about animals from all his years of hunting and tracking, Stephen fell into an easy crouch so he wasn't standing over them but rather was closer to their eye-level, less of a threat. "Connor?" he said quietly, the only dragon whose name he actually knew; he hadn't been around when Claudia told Cutter her own name.

The dark-haired young man flinched, head bowed forward, dirty hair crowding around his face.

"Connor, it's alright. No one will hurt you. _Any_ of you," he added quietly, hoping the others understood him. Stephen didn't try to move any closer, still about a metre away, staying well out of their personal space. "Connor, no one's going to hurt you. It's okay. It's alright," he repeated. Then, on impulse, he slowly extended one hand, palm up. They all shrank back as if his arm was a poisonous serpent, but he didn't withdraw, didn't move. He was entirely focused on these strange creatures in front of him, as curious and mysterious as any other that came from the anomalies, perhaps even more so, that he didn't even notice the others were all watching in silence. "Connor," he said again, softening his voice to a degree none of them heard from him before.

Slowly, as if drawn forward by invisible thread, Connor began to inch forward, not rising but crawling on hands and knees, cringing all the while. He didn't even know why he was moving _towards_ a Human, even if this had to be the kindest Human he'd ever seen, second to the little white-haired female, Abby, who'd soothed him in his fever. He could smell the Human male; there was none of the false scent that made his nose burn and itch, but rather frost and pine needles and fresh-turned soil, conjuring up vague memories from the depths of Connor's mind, memories of someplace far distant and wild. _Home._ And instinct demanded he move towards it, for once in agreement with the forcibly ingrained training that demanded he obey the words of the Master.

Stephen remained still, letting Connor come to him, though a distant corner of his mind wondered how the fearsome beast that'd earlier been exhaling fire hot enough to melt steel had become this quivering, terrified young man in front of him. When his fingertips brushed the top of Connor's dirt-matted hair, the dragon cringed powerfully but didn't back away, instead continuing forward painfully slowly until his arms nearly brushed Stephen's knees before resuming his kneeling position. Careful not to move too suddenly, Stephen let his fingers lightly pass over the tangled black hair. It was knotted and dirty, but with a proper washing, he had a feeling it'd be like polished obsidian. Exceedingly gentle, he began to stroke the matted mess as best he could.

Connor's eyes widened slightly at the lack of pain, but then closed again as he leant forward slightly, towards the oh-so-very-gentle touch. Unaware of it, he whined low in his throat, pleading wordlessly. He slumped forward even further, until his head rested against Stephen's thigh, feeling the unfamiliar texture of warm denim under his cheek; both hands crept forward to unknowingly clutch at the man's jacket, whining as Stephen continued to lightly stroke his hair.

"Professor Cutter," said Lester in a peculiar, tight voice, breaking the silence even though he hadn't looked away from the scene before him. "See if you can't find them some proper clothes. And get them into a bath. They'll be staying here in the ARC."


	9. Trust

"How many escaped?" asked the Keeper in a cool voice, standing with both hands clasped behind her back. Dangling from a slender gold chain around her right wrist was a black metal rod about a foot in length and no thicker than a pencil, tapered to a dull point at one end almost like a wand. It seemed entirely innocuous, but the man sitting in the chair paled whenever he caught sight of it.

"W-we've recovered f-f-four of them already," he answered, so nervous that his stutter began to resurface.

Her wrist twitched, flicking the metal rod up into her hand, and she lightly caressed it with her fingers. "How many escaped?" she repeated softly, though the low tone of her voice was anything but soothing.

The man, the soft, pasty fool that was supposed to be in charge of the Kennels, shrunk down in his chair. "S-s-seven."

"Seven." She turned to look out the window at the training grounds below. New recruits were being put through drills with their dragons, learning how to coordinate the way they would be expected to out in the field. Her own creature knelt beside her desk, hands folded neatly in its lap, head bowed, so very still it almost seemed unalive. It had taken the Keeper almost a year to break her pet to harness, nearly a record, which is why she chose to keep the creature; she liked the ones that fought, simply because it made breaking them all the more enjoyable. "Seven," she echoed again. If word ever got out that even a single one of these beasts had escaped...oh, there would be a living hell, no doubt even riots. And the ideas that would be put into the other monsters' heads. One was a fluke, an accident, an incompetent Keeper that could be very discreetly 'retired' but seven? Seven was the beginning of an uprising.

Lightly tapping the dull point of the rod against her opposite palm, she turned back to face the man. "You allowed seven to escape. This demonstrates a lack of competence that cannot be allowed within this institution, and thereby instigates your immediate termination from our employment," she informed him brusquely.

Before he could open his mouth, she had strode around the desk and shoved the rod against his chest, directly over his heart. It didn't puncture his flesh, didn't even bruise, but his entire body arched in the chair, eyes rolling back in his head. His hands clawed on the chair's arms, legs kicking, heels beating a panicked staccato on the floor. His mouth opened in a silent scream as his body twitched. She twisted the rod once before yanking her arm away. The man's corpse slid out of the chair to fall limp on the floor; blood trickled from his nose, mouth, and ears.

"Come," she barked, and her pet scrambled up, following after her as she strode out of the office without so much as a glance towards the body quickly cooling on the rug. The Keeper strode down the hallway to the room where the others waited, shoving the doors open without ceremony.

"What's the damage?" asked another Keeper, sitting casually with one ankle resting on the opposite knee. Another of the black metal wands dangled from his wrist on a thin gold chain. It was the only part of their uniform that differed from all the other Keepers in this place, the one thing that marked them as the elite, as hunters.

"Seven," she answered.

"Fucking hell."

"Quite."

He sat up slightly. "So...what do you want to do?"

Still caressing the slender metal wand with her fingers, a soothing motion, she turned about to look at him. "We call in the others, and we go after them. And bring in Subject 83 as well."

A cruel fascimile of a smile came to the man's face, though it was more like a predator's show of teeth before the kill. "I like how you think."

* * *

Getting the dragons to the shower room was a fiasco in and of itself. Cutter doubted he'd ever be able to forget just how terrified they sounded, not of the prospect of bathing but of what they would end up having to do as payment. He didn't know what future they came from, but it was being painted in bleaker, darker shades in his mind if these people were treated so miserably that they had to give sexual favor just for the chance to have a sodding _bath. _It took him nearly a half-hour to convince Claudia that no one there was going to hurt her, that nobody was going to touch her or any of the others, and it took almost twice as long for her to convince the others, all of whom were still leery of Cutter and everyone else. During that time, though, Abby and Emily left to go find the refugees clothes that weren't borrowed from the lockers in the ARC.

"We're back," Emily said as she walked into the locker rooms, a little breathless, with an armful of plastic bags. Abby followed close behind her, similarly burdened.

Cutter, sitting innocuously off to the side, rose to his feet. "Good. Claudia?" he called.

On the opposite side of the room, as far away from the humans as physically possible whilst still being in the same room, the seven dragons were sitting or kneeling on the tile floors, still damp from the showers and wearing some of the spare clothes the SF's kept around. They spoke in low voices, conversing entirely in their own burbling, clicking language. He hadn't quite gotten around to learning names yet, mostly because whenever he went near, one or more would start growling at him. Claudia lifted her head at the sound of her name, but just as quickly looked away, once more staring at a point just off Cutter's left shoulder. It'd been firmly ingrained in her that she was below Humans, that she was never to directly look at a Master like they were equals. The lesson had been enforced by a beating after she once met a former Master's eye when she was one-and-ten years old; she'd been unable to get up the next day. "Yes, Master?"

He gave a low sigh. "Just Nick," he corrected yet again, though he knew it wouldn't be the last time he would make the distinction. "There's clothes for you lot. I can't imagine that those are too comfortable." The black t-shirt practically swallowed her frame in fabric, and it was almost a cocktail dress instead of a shirt on her, the bottom hem reaching to her thighs.

Slowly she rose, coming closer towards them with tentative steps, the other six watching her anxiously. Cutter tried not to stare at the fact that she wasn't wearing anything but the t-shirt, but the sight of more scars on her legs killed whatever else he might've felt and replaced it with a quiet, simmering anger. "Those...are for us?" she asked hesitantly, the expression on her face clearly saying she didn't quite believe him.

"They are," Emily jumped in, the dark-haired girl taking a half-step forward. "I mean, we had to guess at your sizes and such, and we didn't know what you'd like, but yeah, it's for you guys. Can't exactly have you running around starkers, can we?"

The others were beginning to rise, coming closer hesitantly. Including Claudia, there were four women and three blokes. There was the young girl that'd nearly sliced Cutter to ribbons, a young black woman, and another young woman that also had a foreign air about her, having dark eyes, black hair, and olive-toned skin. Aside from Connor, there was a lean bloke with short brown hair and keen blue eyes, along with another with lighter blond hair, not as tall and built with more muscle. Claudia sank down to sit on the floor once more, looking into the bag full of clothing hesitantly at first but then rifling through it with interest, and the others followed her lead.

Cutter slid out of his chair to sit on the floor as well. Not exactly the most comfortable seat in the house, but it made him feel a little better to be on an even level with them, and he noticed that Abby and Emily, whilst a little more hesitant, sat down on the tiles as well. "What are your names?" he asked quietly; Claudia went still, turning her head slightly to listen without being overt about it.

The girl-woman nearest to him, the one with the foreign look about her, glanced up at him for only a bare second before looking back down at the white blouse she currently had in her hands. She lifted one hand to touch the collar at her throat, absently fingering the little silver tag that dangled from it. "S-Sarah," she whispered at last, her English more strongly accented than Claudia's. It was then that Cutter noticed the metal tag was engraved: there were peculiar symbols he didn't recognise on one side and the name _Sarah_ etched on the other side.

"Well, Sarah, my name is Nick Cutter. That over there, that's Abby, and that's Emily."

She inclined her head towards them in an awkward sort of bow, but then she burst out, "You won't send us back?" as if she could barely hold her tongue a second longer. The moment the question escaped, though, she cringed, expecting a blow to fall on her at any moment for the outburst. Around her, the others gave a hissing intake of breath, going still in waiting for his answer.

Cutter leant forward with elbows on his knees, having to tilt his head in order to look at her face, curtained by her still-damp hair. "No, we're not sending you back," he answered quietly. It was a dangerous promise to make. God only knew how having seven people from the future would affect the timeline, but he hoped, prayed, that maybe if they were here, then perhaps something might change for the better, at least. Somehow. "You'll stay here with us until we figure out what to do. But we won't send you back."

* * *

The strange Master who didn't act like a Master had somehow managed to procure a room just for them. Claudia wanted to believe the notion that they really were free, that there was no reason to be afraid anymore, but she simply couldn't. So far, this...Nick Cutter, as he insisted to be called, was polite, even kind. Oddly so. Bizarrely so, even. He had yet to hurt any of them, not even a scolding word, and had promised them they wouldn't be forced to return through the Gateway, said that the not-quite-Keepers wouldn't be allowed to use any of them for pleasure, as was often the case in the Kennels. Still, she couldn't trust him. His rugged features might've seemed like the sort for unnecessary cruelty, there was a strength in him behind this strange caretaker veil. She wasn't certain what sort of steel it was yet, but if it truly was the volatile kind...they would be on guard.

Whilst the others were moving about in their new accomodations, making reluctant though happy noises, she sat on one of the nearby cots, feeling the unfamiliar softness, the texture of the sheets and pillows. The new clothes the two Human females brought – the pale-haired one was the Abby, and the one with the bouncy, curly hair was Emily – felt clean and soft against her skin, a novelty she'd only experienced once before in her life. Still, her mind kept turning down darker paths. Tracing the cot with her fingertips, she wondered if they had somehow been ployed into a rather ingenious catch-22.

All at once, though, Matt and Ryan bristled, claws extending as their always-alert military senses caught whiff of the spicy-sweet scent only a moment before she did. Claudia turned towards the doorway. Ah, the strange Human had returned. "There's food in the kitchenette if you're hungry," said the Master, Nick Cutter, in a careful, quiet tone of voice, like he was afraid to speak loudly around them. She had yet to hear another Human speak with the same accent as him. Perhaps he was from somewhere else.

Despite it being a risk, she lifted her gaze to look at him, study him, though she still did not meet his eye. He wasn't wearing anything too different from the Humans in her own time: a faded grey shirt, loose cargo trousers, and well-worn boots. And yet... She studied this peculiar, unassuming Human that stood before her, wondering if there was not some sort of mad genius hidden beneath the scruffy, slightly-disheveled appearance. There had to be a price for this kindness. There _had_ to be. She simply hadn't figured it out yet.

There had to be _something_ this oddity of a Master wanted, but no matter how she tried to analyse it, she always hit a frustratingly blank wall. He hadn't shown any sign of wanting anything from them except to be near, to be allowed to give some sort of comfort. Claudia simply didn't _understand_. There was a give and take to everything, that much she knew as certainty. Pleasure muffled pain. Pain cancelled out pleasure. Water was traded for thirst, and thirst demanded water in kind, same for hunger and food. Whips, beatings, and Chains were traded for defiance, and rebellion was rewarded with blood and suffering. Life cancelled out death. Trust only came when trusted in kind, and she did not yet trust this Nick Cutter.

Still, she recalled the way he looked at her scars with a mixture of anger, misery, and regret, as if they caused him pain. Remembered the horrified tones in his voice when he saw the Brand seared permanently into her flesh, a mark of her slavery. Now, oddly, she found herself torn between two feelings, between fear and longing. How long had it been since someone touched her in a way that was not to punish her or bring her pain? When had anyone last concerned themselves with her wellbeing without asking for payment in return? It was too good to be true, which meant it had to be a lie. Right?

She did not, _could not_, trust this Nick Cutter...but a small part of her believed that maybe, she could learn to.


	10. Study

Cutter walked into the room the next day with Stephen, Emily, and Abby following close behind him.

Claudia shrank away, but he held up both hands to show he was unarmed. "It's okay, I promise. We don't want to hurt you, we…" He paused and sighed heavily. "I'm a scientist. Do you know what that is?"

She tilted her head slightly, frowning, then shook her head in the negative. She wondered if it was like an Engineer or one of the other Crafters.

Cutter nodded. "Okay. Well, a scientist…they study things. It's their job to learn, to discover new things. I am an evolutionary zoologist. That's the science of studying animals and the way they evolve over time to adapt. Stephen, he has the same job as I do. Abby is a herpetologist. That's the study of reptiles. Snakes, lizards, tortoises, and now, I suppose, you," he said, and Claudia's gaze flicked to Emily next. "She studies entomology: insects. And you are something new."

"You want to study us?" she asked quietly.

He nodded. "Yeah, we do. But…it won't hurt you, it won't be…anything invasive. But we want to learn from you. Only if you want to do it, of course. Only if you're willing. Is that alright with you?"

She shifted awkwardly, then nodded.

Cutter took her wrist and lifted her arm, and with his other hand, he felt along her arm, applying pressure with his fingertips to feel the bones underneath. She felt more like a bird than a reptile, almost, though the bones were arranged like a human's. When he got to his shoulder, he paused. "What is this…?" He moved his fingers over the peculiarity he felt in her shoulder, a strangeness of her bones. He pressed down a little, and Claudia shifted away with a whimper. "Oh, I'm sorry. Did that hurt?" She nodded slowly, almost hesitantly. "What is that there?"

"My wing joints," she answered. "When we Shift, our bones will reform. Some will fuse, others separate. Our wing joints, though, do not. It has always been that way."

"Are they sensitive, then?"

"You found the pressure point along the side of the joint," she said quietly.

Cutter moved his fingers away from the spot. "Sorry about that. Now, you said your bones reform when you change. How so? I mean, what are some differences?" Claudia shifted a little bit in her chair, and he saw an uncomfortable expression on her face. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"Humans have 206 bones. We have 572."

His eyebrows shot up in disbelief. "Five hundred…and seventy-two?" he echoed.

"Yes. Many are very small, in our joints and spines," she answered. "And depending upon the breed, they are not all distributed the same." He must've looked baffled, because she went on. "I am a healer. In my true form, I have 68 bones in my spine. Sarah, in her true form, will have 104. However, I will have 46 ribs, she will have 32. Do you see?"

He knew he was probably gaping at her with an open mouth, but he couldn't quite help it. "Amazing," he murmured. "Absolutely…amazing. Might I ask why you would have a different skeleton than Sarah would? And would you both be different from the others?"

For a moment, Claudia actually looked at his face, and he could see the disbelief and awe in her dark, gold-flecked eyes before she looked away. "Because we are of different races," she answered in a murmur. She had never had a Human ask so many questions about her and her sort before, and was amazed by his open, almost childlike curiosity. Even now he was gazing at her with something like awe.

"How so? I mean, what are the different races? What's that mean?" Cutter asked, and she swallowed hard, shifting a little in her seat. Hastily, he backtracked. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"No, no, it's alright," she said quickly, then gave him another one of those brief, fleeting looks like she was scared to look at him longer than half a second at a time. "I…I have never had a Hu…someone ask so many questions about my kind before," she said, changing her words midsentence. He knew what she would've said: a Human. She'd never had a Human ask so many questions. "There are ten breeds. I said, I am a healer. We are one of the smallest races, not made for combat. My scales are thinner, as are my bones. We do not…fight well. Rather, we sense hurt in others, know how to make it better."

Cutter tilted his head, an oddly birdlike motion. "The plants, when you healed the others, is that part of it?" he asked.

"Yes. We have…magic, a sense beyond ourselves, to let us know the best way to heal sickness, to sense the healing magic in other things," Claudia explained in a soft voice.

"What about…Connor? What's he, then?"

She bit her lip. "That is…more difficult. He is two races at once, mixed blood…what is word?" she asked with a frown.

"A hybrid?"

"Yes. Hybrid. His father was firebreather, his mother was shadowrunner."

Cutter was rapidly beginning to forget about his examination. "Tell me the difference?"

"Well, shadowrunners are a small sort as well, and few in number…"

* * *

"Look at him. He's like a kid in an amusement park," Stephen murmured under his breath, and Abby gave a quiet laugh. Cutter was engrossed in conversation with the dragon-lady, Claudia, asking questions and scribbling down notes as she answered. Of course, he couldn't exactly blame the professor for being so excited. It was thrilling, alright, being faced with an entirely new species that shouldn't even be physically possible and yet still was. He was fascinated as well. Turning his gaze to Connor, he asked, "How is it that you breathe fire? Is it magic?"

The younger man shook his head. "Biology. In my neck are two glands that contain different chemicals that when they combine as they're exhaled, they ignite."

"Aerosolized napalm," Abby muttered.

Connor cocked his head to one side in a curious motion. "What is...napalm?"

"It's a chemical jelly used in flamethrowers," Stephen answered, then hastily went on, "It's incredible to think that you're biologically capable of producing volatile substances like that. Where are these glands anyways?"

The man reached up to touch the side of his neck, the tender spot just below his jaw. "Here. One on each side. Many of the chemicals are filtered out of my blood when it passes through my hearts and collected here."

Stephen started to make notes when Abby said, "Hearts...plural?" and his hand stilled, eyes lifting to the dragon.

Connor looked slightly baffled. "Yes. Of course." He said it as though it ought to be obvious.

"H-how many do you _have?"_

"Two."

"T-two...hearts?"

Stephen twisted around in his chair, yanked open a drawer, rummaged about, and managed to unearth Palmer's stethoscope. No way. He had to hear it himself. "Where?" he asked.

Connor lightly touched his own chest where any person's heart would be, but then he reached down and touched lower down his side, where a person's liver might be. "They are needed. Our natural forms are larger and require more blood flow. Our vascular system is vastly complicated..."

* * *

The Keeper placed both hands on her hips as she looked around the small clearing, the flickering light of the anomaly seeming almost brittle in the early morning air. She was dressed for the field, her uniform steel-grey and formfitting, unimbellished save for the black band on her arm and the insignia of the Keepers stitched onto each arm: a seven-pointed star, each point a different colour, red, white, blue, black, gold, violet, and silver. Her fingers lightly tapped against her thigh, the slender metal rod swinging from its chain on her wrist. Others stood with her, the other elites, pacing around with long, measured strides. Their creatures stood impassively a few strides away, each holding a tight grip on the black-clad soldiers that were left to guard the open anomaly. Pieces of dull metal were scattled around on the leafy forest floor: the remnants of their weapons, torn to pieces by the enormous strength of the beasts.

"Now...where are the ones who came through here?" she asked in a low voice. "There are seven of them. They'd be...different. Unnatural."

None of the soldiers said a word. She admired their tenacity, if nothing else.

"If you don't tell us, you realise that it means pain beyond your own imagining," she said, turning to look at the men, flicking the rod up into her hand. The material in the gloves she wore was specialised to prevent the rod from harming her, but to touch anyone else, the agony of it was unbelievable. She loved it. It was her favourite toy. Right now, she could see the looks of confusion on the men's faces and the terror on the creatures' faces. They knew the touch of the innocuous little thing and feared it, as they rightly should.

"Maybe they don't know," suggested her companion lightly. He was leaning against a tree, admiring a knife he'd taken off one of the soldiers; he favoured sharp things, collected them. His own pet bore the evidence, dozens of straight cuts crisscrossing its flesh where he'd practiced his methods. "I mean, they're just grunts."

She tilted her head slightly to the side, eyeing the men, forced onto their knees. The beasts stood behind them, one hand fisted in the back of the men's uniforms, using their other hand to twist the soldiers' arms behind their backs at a painful angle, keeping them from rising or even moving lest they cause themselves even more pain. "No...they'll know. Look at them. They'll know. They just need a little convincing." She started to move forward towards them, then paused. Turning halfway, she looked to the others. "Where is Subject 83?"

"Awake," came the reply.

"Excellent. I imagine it's raring to go, too. We'll let it have this one." She released the metal rod and stepped backwards, holding out one arm in a sweeping gesture.

Lingering off to the side, the only one of the creatures not kneeling or holding a soldier, swept forward. Its bare feet made no sound at all on the leafy ground. Unlike the rest of them, it was not dressed in the steely grey of the Keepers or the solid black of the soldiers. Dressed all in white, it seemed to glow in the early morning sun, the light reflecting off the near-seamless fabric of its clothing and giving it a pearlescent glow. As it drifted forward, the Keepers' pets released the soldiers and backed away, cowering in fear.

The nearest soldier, Niall Jensen, watched as the white-clad person drifted closer to him. He couldn't see anything of its face because it's hood was up, head bowed forward. It came to a stop just beside him and slowly knelt. A hand, just as white as the fabric it wore, reached out to lift his chin with just fingertips. He startled slightly at the coldness of the touch. All logic and training screamed for him to move, to _react,_ but he couldn't move, body frozen in place. The others were just the same, motionless and watching. A low voice issued out from beneath the hood. "Do you fear death?"

Jensen couldn't repress a shudder at the voice. It was low and raspy and utterly devoid of all emotion, flat and cold. "I...I don't..."

The hood lifted slightly, just enough that he caught glimpse of eyes staring at him, inhuman and the colour of fresh blood. All at once, he was gripped by blind terror and screamed. The hand at his chin moved before the others even saw, seizing his hair and giving a quick, violent twist, snapping his neack like a green twig.

The sound of screaming filled the forest.


	11. Battle Scars

**A/N: it took me way too long to update this. I dunno what happened. Just a warning, but it is a very real possibility that future updates will take longer than usual. Feel free to hate me for it, I'm sorry. But I will strive to keep posting on a semi-regular basis.**

* * *

Becker glanced over at the dragon girl coiled up in the far corner of the room. She was in that strange half-and-half form. Her body was still human but for the wings curled protectively around her back and the long tail that twitched behind her restlessly, the sharp claws that replaced her fingernails, and the small, sharp horns curving from the top of her hair. Scales marked her skin like tattoos, though hers were a deep sapphire blue edged in glittering silver. They tracked across her shoulders and biceps, on her cheekbones and temples, and on her neck. He couldn't tell if there were any more because the rest of her was covered up by clothes. rom where he stood, he could just see the heavy collar around her neck, made of metal and leather, with a small silvery tag dangling from the front and a band of bright yellow marking it. The tag had her name on it, but reading it meant getting close, and he didn't quite trust her yet. From the way she watched his every move, she didn't trust him, either.

And she was watching him.

Her eyes were a rather lovely colour, a dove grey tinged with softest blue, but there was nothing lovely about the look in them. It was perfectly neutral. Becker had never understood the meaning of _neutrality_ until he'd seen this lot. It was the look one might get if unexpectedly faced with a wild animal in the forest. It was a look that said she didn't want to hurt him, but she didn't _not_ want to hurt him either. It didn't matter to her either way. If he let her be, then she would let him be. But if he acted aggressively, she'd take him apart.

The dragons – it was still hard to use that word seriously, even in his head – had been at the ARC for nearly three weeks now, and progress was made not in leaps and bounds by in centimetres and millimetres. They didn't speak unless directly spoken to, didn't go anywhere they were told not to. All in all, they weren't trouble at all...until they were. None of them could stand to be touched and would snap and growl ferociously. They couldn't meet a single person's eye. And whenever they slept, it wasn't uncommon to hear them sobbing and crying out in that oddly melodious language of theirs. They were walking paradoxes – capable of horrendous violence, able to overpower any soldier there, yet cowering at a loud word and playing the part of obedient servant to avoid punishment.

It made Becker's skin crawl, but from what the dragons reluctantly imparted and from their own behaviours, they were treated as little more than slaves in their own time, used for labour, servitude, and sex. The collar they wore apparently was also a shock collar, because if they refused their 'owners' they'd be punished with it. He couldn't imagine, no matter how hard he tried, treating another person like property, to be used and abused at his fancy. Technically speaking, the dragons weren't _people_ in the strictest sense of being of the human species, but that didn't mean a damn thing. They were people by way that they had sentient thoughts and feelings.

As he picked up a shotgun, he heard the dragon girl make a soft noise, the first sound he'd heard from her, and his head turned towards her. She wasn't looking at his face, no surprise, but was rather looking at his arm, head tilted slightly. Her fingers lightly rested on her own bicep, tracing a line from shoulder to elbow. He realised she was staring at his newest scar, a long, curved wound made by an Eustreptospondylus – _there_ was a mouthful, eh? – from an anomaly months ago. It curved down his bicep from his shoulder, stopping just above his elbow. "Never seen a scar before?" he asked snidely, not appreciating her study.

She visibly startled, eyes flicking up to his face before hastily looking away again. But then she uncurled slightly and lifted the hem of her skirt. He nearly looked away until he saw what she was gesturing to. On her outer thigh was a deep scar not unlike his own, still relatively new, almost exactly the same length and shape. It didn't quite sit right with him, such a grievous wound sitting on a girl so young and soft. He was a soldier, it was expected of him to have at least a few stories. She looked like she was barely of age to be applying for college.

Becker replaced the shotgun on the table and walked over to her. Just as he expected, she withdrew into a tight knot of limbs, tail curling protectively around her own legs, and a low warning growl rattled in her throat. He stopped about a metre or so away, lingering just outside what he'd come to understand was their comfort zone – far enough away to be out of reach for a blow or a sudden grab, yet not so far away as to be ignored – and crouched on his heels so he was about eye-level with her. He held out his right arm and tilted it slightly; on his inner arm, just below the crease of his elbow, was a small yet vicious bite mark made by a miniature version of the nightmarish raptors, which Cutter called pyroraptors. Barely the size of a chicken but meaner than all hell.

She studied the scar a moment, head tilted curiously, then reached up and drew down the shoulder of the bright pink top she wore. The faint double-crescent pattern of a bite marked her pale flesh. It was fainter than his, older no doubt, but he knew it must've hurt like a bitch. Once she'd straightened her top, her grey gaze moved back to him expectantly.

It became sort of a game, almost. He'd show her one of his scars, most of them fairly recent, some a few years old, and she'd find one of her own that nearly matched it in terms of size, severity, or cause. Neither of them said a word, but Becker wasn't one for talking anyways. And he found this game of theirs rather intriguing. Some scars couldn't be compared, being places that couldn't be shown without removing some article of clothing, but they still got nearly an hour out of it either way.

Finally, he got to the only burn scar he had, a nasty, shiny welt on his leg; he had to roll his pant leg up a little to show it to her. There'd been a fire in his block when he was sixteen, and in the process of escaping, he'd managed to burn himself a right good one on a piece of red-hot metal. It hadn't gone away at all, and he'd spent a few weeks on crutches, bragging to his friends.

The dragon girl eyed it for a moment, then turned halfway around, slipped the shoulder of her top off again. Becker's throat went tight. Seared into the pale flesh on the back of her shoulder was a symbol, an actual, honest-to-God _brand_ permanently imprinted upon her. It took a moment of staring at it for his mind to resolve and realise that it was a cabalistic likeness of a dragon. He'd seen the same thing on each one of them; it was another sign of their permanent slavery, as if the collar wasn't already enough. She turned back to look at him, fixing her sleeve again. Becker shook his head slowly. "You win. Can't beat being branded," he muttered wryly, more to himself than her. He straightened up and walked back to the table were his guns were laid out, waiting for attention.

He felt her cool, animalistic eyes on his back the entire time.

* * *

Such strange creatures, these Humans were. This one in particular provided Jess with some confusion.

_Looks like a Keeper, walks like a Keeper, wears weapons like a Keeper...yet not a Keeper._

He'd shown her his scars after he'd caught her eyeing up the one on his arm. When he came over, she'd thought he would punish her for staring so openly – no dragon was permitted to look directly into the mein of a Master. She hadn't thought he would instead display more of his scars and then look to her as if asking to see more of her own. And she'd shown him. Partially because she was still afraid to disobey but also because she was inherently curious of this not-a-Keeper.

His scars were quite surprising, though. She knew that Humans were surprisingly frail creatures, for all their terrifying power. Soft skin with no scales to protect themselves, no horns or claws, sometimes she wondered how they had become Masters at all. He didn't have the ability to heal the way she did, so he'd mark easily, but more than that. They could take very little damage before being killed, so for him to have borne so many wounds without expiring was...impressive. She preferred despising Humans, but a part of her still had to admire his tenacity.

And scars were a particular thing to her people. They were a sign of strength and power, and the more that were collected, the stronger that dragon was considered to be. Every dragon was expected to have at least a few scars by the time they reached adulthood. Hatchlings and adolescents were excused from this rule, of course. Her first scar was the Brand, the one burnt into her shoulder, as it was with most. She had a vague memory of her own youth, being dragged away from her mother by the Collar, held against a wall, and then screaming her throat bloody as the terrible, blinding pain of burning metal was imprinted into her flesh, held there for nearly an entire minute to ensure that it would leave a permanent scar. It was one of the many things that she hated about Humans but perhaps the one she hated most – imprinting the Brand upon children. They were such harsh creatures, they even burnt Hatchlings. Sometimes she wondered how they were so numerous if their treatment of young ones was so harsh. It was a miracle any Human survived their own childhood.

A metallic click drew her mind from morbid thoughts of the past and back to the not-a-Keeper. He was back to ignoring her presence again, sitting at the table and meticulously cleaning one of those...things, the metal weapons that could spit steel teeth. He did that a lot, she noticed. He seemed to have a certain affinity for them. She despised them. Still, her gaze was drawn to his hands, watching as he treated the weapon with as much attentive care and delicacy that any Crafter would show their own designs. Another thing she had to reluctantly admire.

What a strange creature he was. Curling herself up once more, Jess rested her chin on her knees and watched the curious not-a-Keeper as he worked, her fingers lightly tracing the scars on her arms as she did so.


	12. Steps

In one of the empty offices, Connor was feeling uneasy. Not one of these Humans had raised a hand to him yet, nor spoken harshly or demanded anything ungodly of him, but that only made it worse. There had to be a price for this kindness. There simply _had_ to be. No Human gave anything without wanting something in return, that he knew for fact, and they were just sinking deeper into the trap. The Gateway had brought him to a place and time before the War, when the Humans still thought of him and his kind as myths and legends, not beings of true flesh and blood, but why would that make any difference? They still feared anything different than themselves, a trait that had never faded from Humankind in all their millennia of evolution. Anything they were not was a thing to be hated.

The pale-haired one, the one that always corrected them when they called him 'Master' and insisted his name was Nick Cutter, was both amusing and baffling in his curiosity. He never seemed to run out of questions, like a Hatchling just leaving the den and endlessly inquiring about the outside world. Humans did not live anywhere near as long as a dragon did, but Connor knew that by the standards of Humans, Nick Cutter was a man grown, yet he had all the effervescent excitement of a child when it came to the seven refugees. Claudia had near strangled him, yet he still sought her out with his questions. If such a situation had occurred in their time, Claudia would be chained in the depths of the Kennel, being broken to harness by one of the Keepers, if not dead already, for attacking a Master.

Connor growled low in his throat, a shiver passing down his body like a flick through a rope as he tried to dislodge some of the crawling discomfort from his skin. He wished that they would leave. The War had not happened, so no questions would be raised as to why there were seven dragons about without registration. Gods take it, these Humans were so bloody self-absorbed that they wouldn't even _know_ he was a dragon if he kept his glamour up. Surely they would be able to find their own kind, somewhere in hiding, seek them out, be safe amongst fellows? But no. The others had agreed with Claudia—seven in a world of seven billion were no good odds, so it was safest to remain here.

He slid down from the rafters he felt most comfortable in to the floor, still in his halfway form; there was no room in this blasted place for him to fully Shift to his true form, not without breaking several walls. That one Human, the one they called 'Lester' was more like a Keeper than Connor could bear, and it was endlessly wise not to anger him. He gathered up several papers which had half-finished spells written across them, intending to finish his work, when all at once, he heard footsteps coming up the corridor towards his room, towards his territory. He bristled warily, inhaling through his nose. The smell of reptile musk, flowers, and overturned soil conjured a mental image of the little white-haired female, the Mistress Abby Maitland. His hands tightened on the papers as she came closer.

* * *

Abby stopped just outside the doorway of the office Connor had apparently decided was his. The door was always open—all seven dragons had some form of claustrophobia and couldn't stand to be in a room if the door was closed, to feel locked in—but she didn't walk in. From what she'd garnered from the secretive creatures, dragons weren't mindless reptiles but rather keenly intelligent and extremely well-mannered, holding to a strict code of etiquette that enveloped everything from how they greeted each other to shaking hands or even walking into a room. The dark-haired one, Sarah, had explained to Abby that if a dragon claimed a room as theirs, be it an office or a bedroom or even a broom cupboard, then it was that dragon's territory, and no other would walk into it without first asking permission and receiving it from the owner. To do so otherwise, walk in without asking, was considered terribly rude and downright insulting. Abby found it almost amusing, the way that such fearsome creatures had such cultured manners, but the amusement went away quickly when Sarah explained also that insulting a dragon like that gave them the right to tear the offender down one side and up the other, figuratively and literally.

"Connor?" she said quietly. He was standing in the far corner of the room, gripping a stack of papers in both hands so tight she feared he might tear them. "Is it alright if I come in?" There were deep scratches in the top corners of the room, cabalistic symbols etched deep in the plaster by his talons; marks that said the room was his territory.

He was in his halfway form again, with wings and a tail and horns, his eyes more golden than near-black now. "Yes, Mistress," he muttered quietly.

"Abby. Just Abby," she corrected as she stepped over the threshold into the office, coming to stand just within arm's reach of him. The desk and bookshelf had been shoved off into the corner to make a rudimentary fort, and if she stood on her toes, she could see that there were clothes and blankets piled up there like a nest. "I haven't seen you out in a while. I wondered if you were alright."

"Fine, Mistress," he said quietly. He still wasn't looking at her, but rather at a point just off her right shoulder.

"Just Abby," she reiterated, then shuffled her feet. "You know...we won't hurt you, Connor. You don't have to be afraid of us."

"Don't I?" he asked so softly she almost didn't hear him.

She didn't know what to say to that, and of its own will, her arm lifted and reached out slowly, keeping her hand extended so he could see she wasn't holding anything and watching how he shrank away from her until he had no more room to shrink, tensed as if braced for a blow to fall on him at any given second. He shuddered violently when her fingertips brushed the top of his hair, but his eyes flew open wide as she slowly brushed the tangled black hair back from his pale face, sweeping it behind his ear before sliding her fingers into the strands. She kept her eyes on his face as she very lightly scratched her nails against his scalp before tentatively moving to rub behind his horns; unlike his full dragon self, when he was half-Shifted, his horns were smooth, black, and curved, like obsidian-carved daggers instead of antler-like tines. Some of the tension eased from his frame, and his lashes fluttered. He practically melted through, when she applied more pressure, taking up a steady massaging motion, eyes falling closed; when she started to pull away, he followed, leaning towards her touch.

"Maitland!" Becker said loudly, his voice echoing up the corridor.

In an instant, almost faster than the human eye could track, Connor was back up in the rafters above their heads, eyes slitted, teeth bared as his body deepened the Shift into full dragon form. More scales appeared, teeth sharpening, and nails retracting as claws extended, and a deep growl rumbled from his throat, smoke lacing his breath. Abby sighed heavily. "What?"

"Lester wants to see all of us in his office," replied the captain sharply; the _'now'_ was unspoken but it was clear enough in his tone. Lowering her arm, she stood and followed him to the door, then glanced back at Connor. The dragon had curled himself into a scaly knot in the furthest corner of the rafters, wedged up at a peculiar angle to the ceiling, wings wrapped around himself so only his golden eyes were visible; he hissed ferociously. She walked out of the room. _One step forward…three steps back,_ she thought.

* * *

Emily loved her bugs. It was a peculiar hobby and passion, one that made her mother go positively faint in horror; she'd always wanted Emily to be a lady, refined and elegant, but instead got a daughter that came home with dirty nails and scraped knees, catching bugs in glass jars.

She had insects from all over the world, some common, some endangered, beautiful and bizarre, all shapes and sizes and colours. Some she had raised from eggs she imported; she'd study their life cycles, and when they died, she'd have them preserved in the glass display cases she kept just for that purpose. Emily sat at her desk, watching her goliath beetle creep across her wrist, up her arm, smiling softly, liking the soft prickling feeling it left on her skin.

"Why do you keep these creatures?" asked a low, melodious Irish brogue from the door, and she nearly leapt out of her skin, nearly dislodging the beetle from her wrist. The dragon, the Irish one, Matt, was standing in the door. He was tall and lean and a little too thin, with brown hair cut short and just the hint of a goatee. He wore a leather jacket zipped up to his neck, and the collar of the jacket almost hid the metal-and-leather collar. He was looking around with that cool, crystalline blue gaze, those neutral animal eyes. His eyes were truly neutral—he didn't want to hurt her, but he didn't not want to, either. "What do you do with them? Do you…do you eat them?" he asked.

Emily stood up, gently took the beetle from her wrist, and set it back in its terrarium, sliding the lid in place. "No, of course not. I'm an entomologist." He gave her a puzzled look. "I study insects. Their life cycles, their eating habits, their behaviour," she explained. "That's why I keep them. Why would I eat them?"

Matt sidled over to the beetle tank, tilting his head to look closer. "These sort are quite delectable," he murmured.

She twisted around to look at him. "You…you eat insects?"

"Yes, though small fish and birds are favourites as well. Masters prefer my breed because we need little. Though usually, they will only give us crickets." He made a face at the word _'crickets'_ like someone suggested he eat dirt.

"Your, uhm…your breed? Which one's that?" There were ten different kinds of dragon, so they'd learnt from Claudia and the others, which was a bit of surprise to Emily. She really hadn't thought there could be any other kind than 'giant treasure-hoarding fire-breathing flying lizards,' but apparently she was wrong about that. According to Claudia, there was only one breed that actually could breathe fire at all. Cutter had been over the moon to learn so much about them, and he was compiling an entire notebook full of notes on them. But for the life of her, she couldn't remember the names.

"Skydancer," he answered. He moved on to one of the tanks that had a shade cloth draped over it—her moth larvae couldn't be exposed to harsh lights until they cocooned or they'd die. But he didn't try to move the cloth. Then he moved away to look into the tank which held the giant stick insects. "A tad bitter…but still pleasant."

Emily felt a little nervous, seeing the way he eyed up her insects. "Okay, you do know that these aren't for you to eat, right? None of them are on the menu, got it?" she reminded him.

He bowed his head acquiescently. "Of course, Mistress."

A flush rose to her face. "I'm nobody's mistress," she mumbled.

Matt's eyebrows rose. "What in the world are these?" he queried, tilting his head as he looked into the tank that held her dermestes beetles.

"Those? _Dermestes macculatus._ Flesh-eating beetles. Usually, they're used to clean the bones of burn victims because they can eat the charred flesh without damaging the skeleton," Emily replied automatically. According to Becker, she knew as much trivia about insects as Cutter knew about evolutionary patterns. She liked to take it as a compliment.

"Interesting. I wonder if this makes them taste like meat."

Emily's eyebrows rose. "Let's not find out."


	13. Hooky

"I wonder what the rest of them look like when they're dragons."

Stephen looked up sharply from the book he was reading. Sitting with his feet up on the desk, Cutter was idly fiddling with a pen, a distant look in his eyes. "Don't even think about it, Nick," he warned; he knew that look. That was Cutter's I'm-thinking-of-something-that'll-for-certain-get-us-in-trouble look, the one he wore before he thought up some idea that almost always ended up going pear-shaped, usually sooner rather than later. "Lester would never allow it, and even if he did, where in the hell could we possibly go that nobody would _see_ them? In case you've forgotten, Connor wasn't exactly inconspicuous," he reminded. What frightened him more was that, according to Connor himself, he was on the _small_ end of the scale, that in terms of size, only Claudia's dragon form was smaller. And if Connor as a dragon was small, then he didn't even want to know what a _big_ dragon might look like.

"We could go to New Forest. Forest of Dean. Hell, the moors, even," Cutter replied stubbornly. "Imagine what they must look like, Stephen. All we've ever seen of dragons is artists' renderings throughout history. Paintings, drawings, carvings, but now we've got the chance to see one that's _real,_ alive and moving, right in front of us. Now you tell me that wouldn't be something you'd like to see."

Stephen faltered there. Alright, surely it _would_ be a hell of a thing, seeing something like that in the flesh, but still, he had his worries. Adjectives like _enormous, fire-breathing,_ and _man-eating_ kept springing to mind. "Yeah, it was," he replied hesitantly, and Cutter grinned smugly. He hastily added, "But Lester would never agree to it."

But that didn't seem to put a damper on Cutter's mood at all. In fact, the Scotsman smiled a little wider and leant back in his chair. "Who says Lester has to know?"

* * *

"You want to _what?"_

"Take them outside for a while. Away from the ARC. Somewhere they can...stretch their wings."

Becker reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, eyes closed. "Cutter, I know that you're some kind of adrenalin junkie, but this is really pushing it now, even for me," he sighed. "You _cannot_ seriously expect to take seven shape-shifting dragons, all with a list of problems as long as my leg, out to some isolated stretch of forest, alone, and give them free rein. No matter how you might phrase it, there is no scenario where _that_ comes out alright. None. Odds are they'll just end up eating us."

Cutter waved a hand. "They wouldn't do any such thing."

"And what exactly makes you so sure of that?" Emily demanded of him, arms folded across her stomach as she eyed him up sternly. "I mean, they haven't exactly been entirely _civilised_ whilst they've been here."

The Scotsman had the good grace to look chagrined at that. Not three days ago, one of the braver soldiers had done or said something to Sarah that managed to piss her off. What had been said, they weren't sure, because he'd gone running out of the ARC and hadn't been back after she'd picked up one of the 135-kilo, stainless steel lab tables and thrown it across a room. The dragons had an almost uncanny ability to switch from savage and proud creatures that could quite easily break any one of them in two like toothpicks to pale and shaking servants that flinched at every loud noise and couldn't look anyone in the eye. For the most part, they remained reclusive and quiet, going to lengths to stay out of the way, but apparently, written somewhere in the human genome, there was a segment of code that, whenever something like this happened, said, _There is something that doesn't make sense. Let's go and poke it with a stick._

Dragons, as it turned out, didn't much appreciate that.

"Well, maybe they'd be a bit more settled if they had the chance to relax a little," he answered at last. "I mean, _we_ are allowed out of here when we go home, but they're stuck in here day in and day out." He pushed his hands in his pockets and huffed softly. The captain didn't look at all convinced, so he shook his head. "Becker, I'm not asking your permission. I just figured you'd want to come with. Either way, they're getting out, at least for a while."

Becker let out a heavy groan, hanging his head. _Bloody hell._ When he glanced over at Emily and Abby, who were both watching him with expressions of vague amusement. "Well, I'll have to come with now. Someone needs to keep him from getting eaten."

"Glad you'll be there to help," Stephen said, leaning up against the wall. "I need to have at least one hand to shoot something if things get out of hand."

"How about I do the shooting, and you do the restraining?" Becker suggested. "He's less likely to hit _you."_

"Fair enough."

With a final exchanged look, the four of them followed after Cutter.

* * *

Claudia was torn between being sick with her own nervousness and trembling with excitement. They were going out.

The suited man that reminded her so uneasily of Masters, the one called Lester, had said they weren't supposed to leave the ARC, which was why she felt so horribly anxious. But when she reminded the pale-haired Human, Cutter, he only scoffed and said Lester could "stuff it" and said they were going out at least for the day. She was crouched down beside Connor and Jess in the back of the Hilux, huddled down behind the seats so the guards wouldn't see them. Sarah, Caroline, Matt, and Ryan were in the other truck with the not-quite-Keepers, Becker and Danny.

Abby sat in the front seat beside Cutter, and once they'd driven out past the gate, she turned in her seat to look down at them. "Alright, c'mon up. It's clear."

She drew herself up in the seat, the unfamiliar growl of the engine humming through the metal frame. "Where will we be going, Master?" she asked, then instantly wished she could call the words back; it was not the place of any dragon to question their Human betters.

But he only smiled wistfully out the windscreen. "Just Nick, Claudia. Just Nick. I'm not the master of anything. Call me Cutter, call me Professor if you'd like, but please, don't call me Master," he replied, throwing her a small glance from the corner of his eye. There was nothing irate or indignant in his gaze, to be questioned by her kind, only a kindness. "And we are going to New Forest. It's bigger than most, and you might not be able to fly very high, but you can still transform into your…I mean, your dragon selves," he said, fumbling slightly.

"Our true forms," she corrected, and he nodded. Deciding to see just how forgiving he would be with her in the matter of asking questions, she queried, "Why?"

"Why are we going?" he clarified; she nodded. "Well, a few reasons. For one, you've been here over a month, but you haven't left the ARC once. I'd go utterly mad if I was kept indoors that long." She bit her tongue so as to not tell him that they had all spent far longer in the Kennels without being released, in spaces far more uncomfortable and unforgiving than the ARC. "And none of you have done much more than grow some scales and claws every now and again. I, uhm…" He cleared his throat. "I wasn't sure if it was…uncomfortable for you to stay like this for so long."

Claudia could smell the embarrassment on him; he was chagrined to admit that he was concerned with their well-being? Curious. "We may stay human indefinitely, though, yes, we will become…anxious."

"Well, then, that's why we're going. It'll be good for you to get out. See the sun a little."

Settling down against the seat, she looked out the window. Things were so _different_ here. It had none of the technological advances she was used to seeing—no medvacs, no link ports, no airlifts—but there was still so much _more._ More colours, different fashions, advertisements and images of so many things that were illegal in her time. The British Government was very clear on what was and was not allowed to be shown to the public, including books, magazines, films, shows on the telly, and newspapers, and to found in possession of things not on the preapproved list could lead to many different things—fines, citations, and, depending on how serious the contraband, even imprisonment. Or execution. But here, people walked around freely, with no fear, no trepidation, none of the tension that she was used to seeing.

Beside her, Jess and Connor were peering out the windows just as eagerly, smiling at the plethora of sights in front of them. Everything was so new to them. Her hand crept across the seat to curl around Connor's, and he was grasping Jess's just as happily.

* * *

"And do you know where they've gone?" asked Lester silkily, eyeing the soldier that stood in front of his desk with a hard, unforgiving look.

"N-no, sir. They've just...gone," he stuttered out nervously.

An exasperated sigh was torn from his lips as he sat back in his chair, lacing his fingers together over his stomach. "Dismissed," he said with a flick of his fingers, and the soldier hurried off.

Once the man was gone, Lorraine stepped into his office instead, "Sir?"

"Oh, it's quite alright, Ms. Wickes. No doubt Cutter and his island of misfit toys decided to take the day off without telling me first, and took our intrepid future visitors with them," he said, staring out the window. Trying to get Cutter to actually listen to him was akin to pulling teeth. If he said 'jump,' this maverick team would not ask 'how high' and would just as likely dig a hole instead. Like herding cats, Lester thought with resigned frustration. "Herding bloody cats."


	14. Dragon

The New Forest—she wondered why it was called that when the trees were all many decades old, nothing new about it—was lush and green and full of life, everything full of the warm, buzzing energy that she had almost forgotten. It wasn't like the hum of healing magic she could feel, or the prickling crawl of power she felt from other dragons. This was the soft chime of a living ecosystem, all lives intertwined and dependent upon each other. Sunlight filtered through the branches, dappling the leaf-matted earth with patterns of light and shadow, the leaves glowing green-gold where the sun's glow touched them. Claudia slid out of the backseat, shivering as her bare feet touched soil. She was still amazed by the fact that she had clothes of her own now, but she would not wear shoes. It restricted her sense of touch too greatly for comfort. She needed to feel the ground beneath her soles to feel truly grounded. She curled her toes in the decomposing leaves and rain-damp soil.

"We've gone a fair bit from the roads," said Cutter from behind her, making her turn. "Should be safe."

"Just so long as you don't come across any hikers or some such," added Abby with hands in her pockets, smiling warmly at them as she leant against the side of the Hilux.

"Nobody else is to see us?" asked Jess quietly.

They both shook their heads. "No. Only us. Remember, this world doesn't believe in the existence of dragons yet. You'd likely just scare them witless and make them question their own sanity," Cutter replied.

"Nobody will see us," Connor reassured. "Not even when we fly."

"Fly? Well, that might be a problem—"

"They will not see us," Claudia murmured, interrupting the Human's words. None of them had been entirely forthcoming in explaining the intricacies of dragonkind to these curious Humans, not even her. One of those intricacies was their innate ability to use magic. They were born with the capacity for magic and learnt to better use it as they grew older. Of course, the use of magic was quite illegal—one of the execution-punishable crimes in her time—and she was a bit unpractised, but she could still cast a glamour well enough that no Human eyes could see her if she chose to go flying. She glanced out at the trees, then looked back to Cutter and Abby. "May we...?"

"Of course. Why we're out here, after all. Go on," Cutter invited.

Claudia glanced over at Jess and Connor; they exchanged smiles with her. Breaking into a sudden sprint forward, she Shifted into her true form for the first time in nearly a year.

* * *

To see a dragon become human was one thing, Cutter decided, but seeing a _human_ become a _dragon_ was something else entirely. It happened almost too quickly to see, but what he did see of it was astounding. The one form seemed to simply flow into the next, like butterfly drawing out of a chrysalis. Connor's transformation was fastest, almost instant. One moment, the boy was there, the next, a great black-and-red dragon was there, somehow even bigger now that he was out in the open, stretching out enormous wings nearly twice as long as his body from wingtip to wingtip, night-black and tinged with bloody scarlet along the bottom edges.

Jess's dragon form was bigger than Connor, well over 12 metres long, and she was a brilliant shade of blue, each sapphire-coloured scale edged with filigree silver; her throat and underbelly was a much paler shade of blue than the dark cerulean-violet of her back and sides, fading to near-white in places. Abby realised that if she was flying, looking at her from below, she would blend right into the sky. She bore two rows of spines down her backbone, and her horns were backswept and smooth, like polished ivory. Her claws and spines were silvery-white, her eyes a bright violet shade, but her wings were surprisingly small, compared to the rest of her, furled close to her back.

Cutter's attention, however, was drawn entirely to Claudia. Unlike the other two, she looked more like a Chinese dragon, her body longer and more serpentine, her legs shorter and wings smaller in proportion to the rest of her. Also, unlike the others, there was a ruffled frill around her neck almost like a lion's mane. With all the grime of the Kennels scrubbed off, she shone bright as a ruby, a brilliant, fiery crimson. Her underbelly, her claws, the tips of her horns, and her back spines were shining gold. More gold tinged the edges of her wings, ears, and neck frill, as well as edged each one of her scales. She was maybe 4 metres long, smaller than Connor, half the size of Jess, and had an air of almost...delicacy about her. She wasn't a creature meant for violence, that much was certain. She stretched like a cat would, extending both forelegs in front of her, claws working the soil, back arching.

_So this is what you really look like,_ he thought, and her serpentine head snapped around towards him, her ears cocked forward, and he realised that he'd muttered his own thoughts aloud again. She stepped towards him, moving with a fluid grace that was more feline than reptilian, and then her neck arched downwards towards him. Her head was easily larger than a horse's, eyes dark golden, with vertical black slit pupils that adjusted to every slight change in light. Her eyes weren't just gold, though, he saw; they were green and amber brown and deep orange, even a little bit red in places. "Good thing we didn't do this in the ARC, eh? You're a tad big for office space," he said idly.

For a reptile, the dragoness's face was remarkably expressive, and she raised one brow at him sceptically. "You are the strangest Human creature I have ever seen," she said, startling him. Her words were well-articulated and understandable, even past the mouthful of razor-sharp teeth longer than his hand, and her voice, whilst still recognisable as Claudia's, was now underlain with a deep, grating rumble that came from the depths of her chest.

He pushed both hands in his pockets, leaning back against the Hilux. "Well, good. Means I'm too interesting to eat," he replied in as casual a voice he had.

Jess gave a low chuckle that sounded like boulders grinding together. She was perched at the edge of the river, her eyes following the flow and ripple of the water, as if contemplating whether or not to jump in. "For now, Human. For now." Quick as a striking snake, one claw flashed out, water splashed in a glittering cascade, and all they saw was the tail of a fish vanishing between her teeth. With a low, purling growl, she slipped down the bank into the water with barely a ripple and disappeared below the surface.

"Won't she come up for air?" Abby wondered as moments passed with no sign of Jess resurfacing.

"No. Jess is a waterdriver. They are the only breed which has gills. She will not need to surface," answered Connor's voice from above. He'd somehow managed to scale a tree without their notice—it was eerie, sometimes, how a creature so big could make so little noise—and was nearly invisible, hidden by the branches, only glimpses of deep black-red hide visible as he moved from tree limb to tree limb with barely a cracking of twigs and leaves as he went.

"The others are here," announced Claudia, her ears flicking, even though neither Cutter nor Abby could hear the telltale sounds of a truck approaching. A moment later, however, Becker's familiar black truck jounced roughly over the ground before coming to a stop near them. Before the truck had even stopped moving, the door came open, and Sarah burst out running, changing forms without missing a step. Cutter saw a flash of golden scales—was that _feathers?_—and then she was airborne, flying upwards. However, before anyone could open their mouths, her image seemed to ripple like a mirage...and then she was gone. She'd simply vanished in midair. He could still hear the sound of her wings, saw the branches stirring violently in her wake, but she was nowhere to be seen.

"What in the hell was that?" Danny Quinn blurted as he climbed out, shading his eyes as he looked upwards. "Where'd she go?"

"I _told_ you that nobody would see us," Claudia reiterated. She'd stretched out in the sunlight, looking for all the world like a lazy cat, one golden eye half-opened to peer at them.

Cutter stepped closer to her, though he was careful to stay outside her comfort zone, noticing how her back spines bristled defencively, her ears lying flat against her head. "You didn't tell me that you lot can apparently become invisible when you like," he countered, arms folded across his chest. "Or is that something only her sort can do?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Matt said as he took off his jacket and tossed it on the bonnet. "All dragons may use magic." He stepped forward, and like Connor, his transformation seemed almost instant. The air sparked and jumped about him, as though reality was not quite as solid, and then he was gone. The dragon was slightly bigger than Jess, maybe 13 metres instead of 12, and was a brilliant silvery-green colour, deepening to dark emerald along the edges of his wings and in dark bands down his back and tail. Similar to Claudia, his body was long and lithe, though nearly half that length was his tail, slender as a whip, but like Jess, he had two rows of knife-sharp spines down his backbone. His dark ivory-coloured horns were backswept and sharply hooked at the ends. Matt shook himself lightly, then stood on his hind legs, long neck stretched up towards the sky. With a leathery sound not unlike canvas unfurling, his wings opened wide, and he pushed off from the ground, soaring upwards. For a moment, he was visible, but before broke the treeline, his image wavered and disappeared as Sarah's had.

"Magic?" Stephen echoed weakly, turning to look at them. "Are you kidding me? You actually have bloody _magic?"_

The small black woman with the mop of curly hair gave a loud snort. "Of course we do. What sort of dim creature are you?" she sneered, and Stephen glowered at her. This was Caroline, the most unpleasant of all seven dragons. She wasn't as broken as the others were, but she was also vicious and vindictive, constantly hissing and spitting at anyone that came near her. Even the other dragons didn't like her very much. Cutter had the feeling that if they had been in any other situation, they wouldn't have brought her along. Of course, when the options were escape or die upon capture, there wasn't much choice. Hissing at Stephen as she walked past him, she crossed the clearing and changed forms as well. Her transformation wasn't quite as fluid, and they were able to watch as her skin hardened and cracked to form hundreds of separate scales, could see her skin shift and crawl as her bones rearranged and reshaped, growing and stretching to accommodate a new form. She was barely bigger than Claudia, her hide a dark, murky brown banded with odd mottled patterns of dark greenish, though her eyes burned a vindictive bottle green, sharp horns curling around and forward, like a ram's; the tip of one had been broken, leaving a prickly crown. She growled at them, a low, threatening note, but was cut off by a sharp hiss from above. Rumbling low in her throat, she skulked away, sliding off through the trees.

That left only Ryan, who stood with arms folded across his chest, austere and unmoving as ever. He was watching the others but seemed in no hurry to transform himself. "Well, mate? Aren't you going to...?" Danny queried, making a gesture with one hand.

Ryan's cool, impassive gaze moved to the former copper. "No." The way he said the word, so short and final, meant that he wasn't going to say any more about it. That was it.

"Might I ask why?" Danny pressed anyways, even though it was pointless. Once Ryan refused to talk, he might as well be a statue.

To their surprise, though, the soldier looked at him once more and replied, "I only take on my true form when I intend to kill someone. Now, if one of you would like to offer themselves, then I would gladly show you." The flat, emotionless tone of his voice, he might have been discussing the weather with a mate.

Danny, however, took a half-step back. "That's alright."

Ryan turned his eyes straight ahead once more, though the corner of his mouth curled up in the barest of smiles.

Suddenly, all of the dragons went perfectly still; even overhead and out of sight, Connor froze. Claudia's head came up, staring out into the trees. Before anyone could ask, she spoke softly. "Something is out there."


	15. Predator

"Claudia—" Cutter began to say, but a sharp hiss from her silenced him just as quickly. She rose to her feet without a sound, ears cocked forward, muscles quivering tense. He wasn't sure what had upset them so, but he was afraid to move lest he break whatever tension they held. Suddenly, he felt his mobile begin buzzing insistently from his trouser pocket, demanding that he notice it. He plunged a hand in his pocket, took out the mobile, and flipped it open. "Not a good time," he said in a half-whisper.

_"No anomaly ever appears at a 'good time,' Professor Cutter,"_ sniped the bureaucrat sharply. _"As you have run off with your little reptilian friends, you need know that another one has just opened in New Forest."_

"No kidding?" he breathed out.

_"Well and truly,"_ came the dry, sarcastic reply. _"Now, get there and sort it out!"_

The line went dead, and he numbly slid the mobile back in his pocket. "It's an anomaly," he said, telling the dragons as well as the other humans. "Claudia, is that what you lot are sensing?"

"It is not the Gateway but what has come through it," came the low, rumbling reply from above. He tilted his head back but couldn't catch glimpse of Connor. That was just downright _eerie,_ too, the way he could just vanish like that, being so damned big. "A predator. Something dangerous. Something...wrong. Not natural."

A chill slithered down his backbone. Future Predators. He knew it, he could _feel_ it. And considering the fact that Stephen was getting his rifle from the truck, Becker was holding his Mossberg a little more securely, and Danny had shifted into a shooter's stance, one hand on his sidearm, he wasn't the only one getting that feeling, either. Something was coming for them.

He heard the rapid, hair-raising clicks of the Predator's echolocation not a split second before a dark blur of a shape came flying out of the trees. But to Cutter's immense shock it flew right past the team, past the small, weak, fragile people, and attacked _Claudia._ A ferocious snarling roar shattered the air as the Predator latched onto her back, making the she-dragon buck and writhe, twisting about in an attempt to snatch the damned thing off her. The Predator shrieked and snarled in reply, claws dragging across her scales, teeth snapping at her. Silver splattered across the leafy ground in a grisly Rorschach, and a heady, aromatic smell filled the air; he realised that it was the smell of dragon's blood.

The sound of tree limbs snapping and cracking drew his gaze upwards just as Connor came leaping to the ground none-too-gracefully, a second Predator attached to his neck with teeth and claws. Suddenly, the dragon's tail snapped up, wrapped around the Predator, and flung it away from him with deadly force. A chunk of scale came away in the creature's teeth, leaving a bite mark oozing silver down his neck. The creature smashed into a tree, and they all heard its bones shatter. It fell to the ground in a misshapen heap, twitched slightly, and didn't rise again.

Claudia had managed to throw the Predator off her back, but it still moved with blinding speed, darting this way and that around her, scoring small yet painful wounds with lightning-fast flashes of claw. Nobody dared tried to shoot at it; they were moving too fast, it'd be too easy to accidentally hit Claudia.

Until the water exploded.

That's what it looked like. The water of the river seemed to _explode_ upward as if someone had decided to go dynamite fishing, throwing up a glittering cascade of droplets and spray into the sunlight. But it wasn't. Jess lunged upwards with all the speed and grace of a striking cobra, and her teeth met with a resounding _snap_ as loud as a rifle report. The severed pieces of the Predator thumped to the grass, pouring blood that wasn't red or silver but a sickly sort of off-black. The blue she-dragon shook her head vigorously, spitting and hacking, as if the Predator had left a foul taste in her mouth—which it probably had, actually.

Claudia was still growling, silver blood trickling slowly from numerous small wounds, and Cutter stepped forward anxiously. He hadn't expected her to twist around with a thunderous snarl, teeth bared, stopping him dead in his tracks. Her ears lay back flat to her head, pupils dilated to thin slits of black, every muscle strung tight. He didn't move, even holding his breath, because an instinct nearly forgotten in humankind, the instinct of a prey animal facing its predator, told him to stay very, _very_ still right then.

* * *

She had not thought she would ever see the _t'serhayn_ again, not in this time nor ever again. They had been destroyed after the War was won, too dangerous and too bloodthirsty to be controlled. Yet here they were, and her body throbbed with pain from the wounds it had scored across her flesh. They were shallow but numerous, meant to cripple, not kill. She stood with head low as she tried to channel her magic into the deepest wounds, growling low in her throat at the pain of torn muscle and sinew knitting itself back together.

Human-scent pervaded her nostrils, she heard the sound of it coming towards her, and in her state of pain, shock, fear, and anger, she reacted on instinct. Her head snapped towards the threat, teeth bared as she thundered out a deadly warning, ears flat and neck frill flared open. Weak, pathetic little prey-beast, so helpless it could not fight her for itself and instead had to create monsters that nature never intended to breathe air. For a moment, all she heard was the drumming of her own hearts in her ears and the sound of the Human creature's heartbeat. It had gone so still, eyes wide, holding its breath, but it could not hold its heartbeat. Her mouth tasted of burning metal, and all she wanted was to seize it in her claws and rend it from limb to limb like a straw-stuffed doll. It wasn't fleeing, but was staring at her still, with a look in its eyes that was a mixture of worry and concern, not for itself, but for _her..._

_Nick..._

The name was a douse of cold water, yanking her sharply out of the murderous mindset she had sunken into. This was no normal Human, some hard-handed Master that'd lash her with a belt if she even sneezed out of turn. This was Nick, Nick Cutter, the distinctly _un_-Human, not-quite-Master, that had shown her more kindness than she had ever known in all her life. Not enemy. Not prey. Slowly, she relaxed her tense position, growl tapering away.

"Claudia?" he said softly. "Are you alright now?"

"I-I'm sorry," she murmured in a quite voice, ashamed of her own actions, instinctively curling in closer to herself in preparation to be punished. "I shouldn't have..."

"It's okay," Nick Cutter reassured, taking the smallest of steps forward to her, and she curled up tighter, cowering. "Are you alright? Are you badly hurt?"

"No..."

He didn't try to touch her but instead stopped a few paces away, looking at her injuries with a worried eye. "C'mon. Let's find the anomaly, then we can go back to the ARC."

A sudden shriek cut through the air, making everyone startle, and then they were off running towards the sounds. Jess had vanished back into the water, but no doubt she'd get there faster by swimming. Connor had returned to the trees, flitting from branch to branch, and Claudia ran with them. As they grew closer, the sound of growling and terrible clicking joined the air, and then they burst into a small clearing. Matt was there, still in dragon form, and a smaller, sleek golden dragon was thrashing in the river, hissing and spitting. A Predator had hold of her tail, and two more were on the Irish dragon; another lay dead on the ground, ripped nearly in two. Just beyond them, the anomaly glittered serenely, already starting to flicker and fade away.

Connor streaked forward, catching one of the Predators that was gnawing at Matt's back with vicious intensity. The wicked-sharp tines of his antler liked horns speared the creature in a half-dozen different places at once, making it squeal and thrash furtively in attempt to free itself. He tossed his head sharply, flinging the creature off him as Matt seized the other in his claws and crushed its skull with a sound like an overripe melon bursting; off-black blood and thicker things oozed between his fingers.

The sleek gold dragon that could only be Sarah came slogging up out of the river just as the anomaly flickered and then closed entirely. She was a little smaller than Jess but still larger than Connor or Claudia, her scales a sun-blasted gold darkening to burnished copper in places. And she _did_ have feathers—Cutter's eyes hadn't been deceiving him after all. Fringing her lower jaw and along her neck were white-and-gold feathers much like Claudia's own frill. There were more feathers trailing down her neck to her back, and a tuft of them at the end of her tail almost like a lion's. Right now, the feathers were plastered against her scales in sodden clumps, streaming water, and she did _not_ look pleased about that in the slightest. She shook herself like a dog, flinging water across all of them, then began to nurse the deep bite on her foreleg.

The brush of hot breath along his neck made the Scotsman glance up, startled to see Claudia's sleek reptilian head so close to him. "If this is how all of your outings end up, I think I would rather stay in the ARC, Professor Cutter," she informed him calmly.


	16. Cowardice

Becker was first to notice what the rest of them had missed in the excitement. "Professor," he said, drawing Cutter's attention away from the dragons. "I count six here. Where's the other bird? The brown-and-green one?"

Frowning, he glanced around. The dragons hadn't shifted back yet, still too edgy to risk it even though the anomaly had closed, and they'd taken up positions around the vehicles. Ryan still hadn't shifted at all, crouched instead on the roof of the Hilux with a borrowed shotgun in hand, looking around with sharp eyes. He saw blue, gold, red, black, and silvery-green, but he saw no murky, mottled brown. "Claudia," he said, and the she-dragon's ears twitched in his direction, the only outward sign that she'd heard him. "Where's Caroline gone?"

Her head came up with a low growl, uncoiling from the tight knot of red-gold scales she'd become, tail twitching with barely restrained energy. Above, the leaves trembled as Connor snarled, smoke curling out between tree limbs; charred, singed leaves drifted downwards, curled and browned from the heat of his breath. They heard the creak of limbs as he moved off through the trees, too quickly to be called back. However, only a few moments later, he was returning, but not alone. He was walking on the ground now, dragging a squirming, hissing, snapping Caroline along by the scruff of her neck, his teeth clamped down on her Collar to drag her along. Snarling, he slung her roughly to the ground, where she twisted to her feet, hissing angrily.

The other dragons stalked closer to her, speaking in that fluid, clicking and burbling language. From the sharp, derisive notes to their voices, Cutter would be willing to bet they were scolding her quite firmly. Even Claudia seemed pissed, her ears close to her head, back spines standing up and quivering like a dog raising its hackles.

However, as the others all ganged up on that rather bitchy-looking dragon, Carol or whatever it was, Danny noticed that there was one figure crouched over by the Hilux, and he made his way over. It was the woman that'd been the gold dragon. Sarah, that was her name.

She was dripping wet and shivering, her fingers, toes, and lips turning blue, and with her tangled mass of black hair, scarred skin, and too-visible ribs, she looked rather like a drowned sewer rat. She was also quite naked, only the tattoo-like traceries of burnished gold-bronze scales distracting from the fact. Danny hastily reached into one of the crates of kit in the bed of the Hilux and pulled out a small towel, coming closer to her; she hissed at him, lips drawing away from her teeth. "Shh, shh-shh," he murmured quietly. "I'm not gonna hurt you. It's alright." He knelt down next to her, holding the towel out with both hands, and draped it over her back. Exceedingly gentle, he rubbed the fabric over her arms and shoulders, drying off the frigid water and being careful not to reach anywhere near her front or lower down. He could feel her tense as stiff as stone, ready to bolt at any given moment. "I'm Danny Quinn. I'm not gonna hurt you. I promise," he said softly.

Sarah clenched her teeth hard, not letting any tension leave her body, and she waited for this, this _Dannyquinn_ to thrown off his sheepskin and become one of the monsters, as was inevitable with Humans. The others were all distracted, demanding Caroline explain the reason for her cowardice, she was very nearly alone with him, and she knew what would happen next. Human males found her attractive, at least whilst she wore her own Human guise, and she knew from the time she was old enough to be put in the Kennels that she'd be more likely sold as a whore than a soldier. Another hiss slipped from her teeth as one of his large hands rested on her back, only the thin fabric of the towel between her flesh and his. She tightened her jaw, waiting for him to start in with the beating that always seemed to precede the abuse, but then, to her surprise, he pulled his hands away, not touching her at all.

Peering through the strings of her hair, she watched as he instead shrugged off his motorcycle jacket and draped it over her. "I don't have anything else that'll fit you, but this'll cover up most everything," he said quietly, and she slowly pulled it around her. There was enough fabric to swallow up her thin frame entirely, and it was better than walking out entirely starkers in front of the dozen SAS soldiers that'd just arrived.

Sarah could smell no lust, no anger or fear on this Human, this Dannyquinn, with the strangest coloured hair she'd ever seen. His hair was a bright red-copper tinted with darker auburn, standing up in erratic tufts and spikes, reminding her of a ruffled duck, and she felt a peculiar longing to reach out and run her fingers through it, just to see if it really was as soft and silky as it looked. She clenched her hands around the coat to keep her hands to herself. He was treating her not like a Human, not like a Servant, but rather...like an equal. Like, even though they were of different species, she was just as worthy of his help as the not-Keeper Captain, Becker.

These Humans were just too strange for words.

* * *

_"Where were you?"_ Matt's growl came from the depths of his chest.

_"The t'serhayn__ attacked and you did not come,"_ Jess hissed, her tail lashing dangerously; unnoticed, several SFs had to skitter backwards to avoid being knocked flat.

_"I did not know,"_ Caroline spat back, lips curling back from her teeth.

Connor bristled, back spines rattling together dangerously as smoke curled from between his fangs, sparks lacing each exhale. _"Lies. You could not have missed their presence, none of us could,"_ he growled back ferociously, claws digging deep gouges into the soil as he stalked closer to her. Claudia kept one eye on him. Connor had a particular hatred for the _t'serhayn,_ as the creatures were responsible for the fall of his family and his forced captivity. They had been deployed to seek out the last free dragons in the Wilds, and his clan had been one of the unfortunate victims.

She spat at him, thin strings of slaver oozing from her jaw; where her saliva fell on the leaves, they hissed and smoked, dissolving away. _"I was too far away. I could not have done anything,"_ she growled.

_"But you should have come regardless, rather than run and cower,"_ Connor snapped.

_"I am no coward!"_

_"I am not so certain of that."_

With a snarling hiss, she lunged at him, claws extended, and they were standing too close not for her to reach him. Connor let out a bellow of pain as her jaws clamped down tight on his shoulder, acidic saliva eating through his scales and into his flesh, silver blood bubbling and smoking. Jess and Matt sank their claws into Caroline's haunches and dragged her away, using their greater size and weight to pin her down. Claudia hastily stepped between the two as Connor started towards the smaller dragoness, opening her wings. _"Do not make it any worse, my brother, I beg of you. Walk away. You know that she is not as we are,"_ she murmured quietly.

_"That is no excuse,"_ he rumbled.

_"No, it is not, but it is reason enough for you to be the more civilised of the two of you, to walk away and forgive her ignorance if not her actions."_

The hybrid dragon stared at her long and hard for a moment, his ears still flat back against his skull, muscles strung tight, but then she saw the tension ease out of him, his tense posture relaxed slightly. _"Very well. Keep her away from me,"_ he added as warning before turning away, not even limping despite the torn flesh of his shoulder. She would need to look at that soon.

Turning back around, she crouched low until her jaw nearly touched the ground so she might look Caroline in the eye. The other dragoness was being held quite firmly to the ground by Matt and Jess even as she cursed and spat, furtively struggling to be free. _"You have made yourself a very dangerous enemy, Caroline,"_ Claudia informed in a grave voice.

_"He is a half-breed, a corruption,"_ Caroline snapped. _"I will not be bested by some cross-bred runt."_

Claudia had to rein in her temper hearing the spiteful little she-dragon insulting her friend and brother. When she was sure that she would not say anything as equally insulting, she lowered her voice further, almost whispering,_ "He has never been broken, not by a Master and not by the Keepers. You will not get the better of him, either, no matter what you might think. He will kill you if you provoke him to, and there are no Keepers here to stop him. Tread carefully."_

* * *

"What, uhm, what was all that back there about?" Cutter asked a little hesitantly.

In the backseat of the Hilux, Claudia was studiously examining Connor's shoulder. She was wearing the professor's military jacket, buttoned up to keep it from falling open and revealing the fact that underneath it, she wore nothing but her bare skin. Shifting from one form to another destroyed normal clothes, except for the Collar, especially cursed with magic so it wasn't destroyed. "You would not understand," she replied without looking away from her patient. Caroline was an acidspitter, and just as the name implied, her breed could produce corrosive fluids much the same way firebreathers produced the chemicals for their flames. Her saliva, even her blood, carried corrosive properties, making their bites highly efficient. Connor's shoulder was swollen and red, marked with acid burn, and it would be slow to heal, very painful.

"Why did the Predators attack you before us?" Abby mused.

"Because they are meant to," Sarah replied in her soft voice, clutching Danny's black motorcycle jacket around herself. She was looking at Connor's shoulder as well, a small frown creasing her brows as she studied the wound. She'd never seen an acidspitter attack before, and she was curious as to just how effective they really were. The sight of the burned, torn flesh made her faintly ill.

Cutter frowned. "What do you mean, they're _meant_ to? Have you seen those things before?" he asked.

For the first time since they started driving, Claudia looked at him. Her eyes were more gold than brown, once more carefully empty of all emotion and thought. Cutter felt like he was standing in front of a mirror that had no reflection in it. A sheet of glass, once polished to a shine, now steely grey and entirely fogged over. Revealing nothing. "I forget, sometimes," she murmured in a voice so soft he almost couldn't hear her over the engine, "that the War has not yet been started, fought, and lost, that you are still as children in the world, so naïve and foolish."

If anyone else had called a foolish and naïve child, Cutter might have punched them. But when Claudia said it, he had a feeling that, no matter what he said or did, she would always be older and wiser than him. "You've seen them before," he said softly, though it was no longer a question.

"I have," she confirmed.

"Where..._when_ are they from?"

"They are relics remaining from the War." Claudia had yet to look away from him, and he could feel her gaze burning into his back. She didn't seem to need to blink as often as normal people did. "Creatures meant to hunt us, to track us wherever we are and slaughter us. The _t'serhayn,"_ she hissed out. This word was not the fluid, musical-sounding language of the dragons, but of a harsher, older language that grated like stones and sent a chill up his back.

Abby's voice came out a murmur, like she was afraid to speak too loudly. "You said they were used in your war."

"It was not _our_ War," Claudia corrected sharply. "And yes, they were. By your kind, to hunt us."

"Who the hell could control a Predator?" Cutter asked.

Her golden eyes shifted from Abby to him once more. "The Humans that created them."


	17. Memories

**A/N: okay, WARNING. There are mentions of past sexual assault in this chapter. It's only short flashbacks and nothing explicit, just hints to what happened, but if that's a problem for someone, please don't read this chapter. I even changed the rating just to be safe, as there will be further mentions later on.**

* * *

"You're telling me that these creatures, the Future Predators, aren't in fact natural evolutions of nature but something arteficially created in a lab?" Lester's voice positively dripped scepticism as he surveyed Cutter and Stephen, standing in front of his desk with identical mulish looks on their faces.

"Yes, and they were made specifically to hunt dragons." It was hard to tell if Cutter knew how ridiculous he sounded and didn't care or if he was just as spectacularly ignorant as ever. The other dragons were back in the empty conference room they had apparently claimed as theirs to lick their respective wounds; they got frighteningly violent whenever medics tried to touch them. According to the one, Claudia, the Predators were designed in the future as a combatant for dragons that didn't involve risking human lives.

Lester leant back in his chair slightly, lacing his fingers together over his stomach. "And why should we believe them?" he asked.

Standing beside the professor as always, Stephen frowned and protested, "Why _shouldn't_ we? They haven't lied to us yet."

"They haven't always been forthcoming, either," he snapped back. "Insofar, no, Mr. Hart, they have not lied, but they have kept the truth to themselves until well after it could have been useful to know. It has become quite tiresome, and I am not prepared to put up with it for much longer."

Cutter was getting that dark, mulish look again. "What do you mean by that? You're not going to start interrogating them, are you?" he asked.

"I was giving it consideration before, and now I am quite decided."

Both men visibly blanched at that, much to Lester's surprise. "Y-you can't do that," Stephen blurted.

He raised one eyebrow, and his voice came out silky and cold, dangerous. A warning. "And why exactly is that, Mr. Hart?"

"You can't," Cutter answered before the other man had chance to, "because they are not going to be able to answer you. Lester, these people, they're not exactly altogether upstairs. I have a hard time getting anything out of them as it is, and they only just like me, forget about trusting me. I don't know what the hell happened to them in their time, but their minds are so banged up, I can't even think where to start. They're terrified of us more often than not, thinking we're going to do something awful to them if they put a toe out of line. If you interrogate them like they're prisoners or criminals, then they're never going to trust us again. Odds are they might just go on and kill us out of sheer fear we might hurt them."

He let out an exasperated sound, sitting back in his chair. "Fine, fine! I'll not have the Captain interrogate them. Satisfied? Now, the both of you, shoo. Go pester someone else for a while," he snapped, shooing them both in the direction of the door. Cutter gave him a hard look before walking out, Stephen a few steps ahead of him.

Once the door had whispered shut again, Lester laced his fingers across his stomach, lightly bouncing one foot up and down on the opposite knee. He fully intended to get the truth out of these fickle creatures, no matter what protests Cutter put up. Who knew what else they were keeping hidden? He would question the one the professor was so very fond of, Claudia. She seemed the most levelheaded of the lot. Surely it wouldn't be so traumatizing to sit down and answer questions when asked. Sometimes Cutter was too dramatic for his own good. But he had said he wouldn't have Becker question them. And he wouldn't. James Lester was a man of his word.

He was going to do it himself.

* * *

Claudia was weary, her body sore and aching from the wounds the t'serhayn inflicted on her. She had healed the flesh, but they still hurt. She had healed the others as well. She had not used her magic for quite a long time, and she was quite exhausted. Something Humans didn't understand about magic was that it was not so simple as saying a few words in another language and things simply happening. It was more like a muscle, really, one that was made of energy. Flexing the muscle, channeling the energy, was what caused magic to work. Similar to a muscle, though, it began very weak and soft, and the more it was used and stretched, then the stronger it became, the more control could be learned. However, if it was not use for a long time, then it grew weak once more, and she had not been allowed to use her magic for many years.

As she came around the corner, the sharp scent of metal, gun oil, and gunpowder made her come to an abrupt halt, head snapping up. Only a few paces ahead of her, the Master that always wore a suit, Lester, stood with two black-clad Keepers standing alongside him. The look on his face was cool and blank, eyes giving nothing away. It was an expression she had seen before on the faces of Keepers, one she had learnt to fear.

"Would you come with me?" the suited Human said in his silky voice. "I have a few questions for you."

"I-I..." Where was Master Cutter?

"It'll only be more difficult if you don't cooperate."

The words rung familiar in her head - _"It'll just be worse if you fight us."_ \- and both hearts lurched in fear. Though she wanted to bolt, to run howling back to Master Cutter so he might protect her, Lester was still staring at her hard, unblinking. Trembling, she nodded. "Good. In here," he ordered, pointing into the room he stood nearest too. Stiff and shaking, she walked forward, forcing her body to move.

_I have to do this. I have to. He is the Master here. He'll probably punish the others if I don't do as I'm told,_ she told herself firmly, trying to gain some measure of control over herself again.

"Sit down, please."

She very nearly knelt on the floor, as all dragons were supposed to, and only by force of will did she pull out the chair and sit there instead. Her memories were struggling back to the surface even as she desperately pushed back against them, trying to focus on the present. The two black-clad Humans did nothing to help, standing between her and the door, their eyes never leaving her.

"Now, you seven know a lot more than you let on," said Lester coolly, standing with his hands clasped. "The knowledge about these...Predators is proof of that."

They had shut the door. There weren't any windows in the room, either. She was trapped. There was no way out. Her chest tightened to the point where it was difficult to inhale, her hearts pounding so hard it hurt, her stomach coiling in knots.

"Now, I'm not a man that enjoys having knowledge like that kept from him. If we know more about these creatures, information I'm sure _you_ could provide, it would make it much easier to find ways to best them without people needlessly dying in the process. You understand that?"

She was gripping the edge of the chair so tightly that the metal was beginning to crumple around her fingers. A fine trembling took over her frame, panic overtaking her. She couldn't breathe. She was trapped. The Keepers had her again, they had her trapped, and she couldn't _breathe..._

"What's the matter with you?" asked Lester, but she couldn't hear him over the rushing noise in her ears. "Get her to medical," he ordered brusquely, though all she heard was the thundering of her own hearts, breath coming in shallow gasps. One of the black-clad Keepers reached out and took hold of her arm. It was the very touch she didn't need, and suddenly memories broke free of the dark corner she had shoved them into, images of the last time she was alone with the Keepers flashing before her eyes.

_They've given her drugs so she can't Shift forms, can barely move at all. Hard hands grip her arms, pinning them to the floor above her head, the two men leaning their weight on her arms to keep her from pulling free as the other two grasp her legs, keeping her knees apart and from kicking at them. The fifth is on his feet, face flushed. "Hold the bitch down and keep her still. I'm going first," he says roughly, breath coming faster as he starts unfastening his trousers._

Claudia screamed, thrashing away from the Human. He jumped back, releasing her arms, and she crawled away, scratching at her own arms to claw away the phantom hands, memories she had tried so hard to forget seeping through her mind insidiously.

_She screams until her throat bleeds, dissolving into sobs, no longer in English but in the language of her people, begging, pleading. "Please, stop, stop. Don't hurt me anymore, oh gods, don't, don't. Gods, let me go, please, stop, it hurts." They are laughing at her tears, think it funny. The first one backs off, but as soon as he moves away, the second moves to take his place, and she screams in agony._

Words spilled from her lips, a string of pleas and sobs even as she clapped her hands over her ears, trying to blot out the sound of their laughter, tears scorching tracks down her face.

_She wants to die. She hurts everywhere, inside and out, and she can hear them still, talking above her, hissing out foul things in her ear, detailing just what they had planned for her next after this. She wants to die, would gladly throw herself onto a sword if one was presented to her, but there is no sword, only these monsters and their poisonous words, making her shudder in revulsion, horror, and fear, until a new voice shouts above them, cutting through the hisses: "Claudia!"_

"Claudia!"

Her eyes flew open to see a becoming-familiar face, pale blue eyes gazing at her with fear and concern, his hands reaching but not touching. Because he didn't want to hurt her. He never wanted to hurt her, only to protect her. She lurched towards him, crawling on hands and knees, head hanging low as she clutched at his legs. "Please, don't let them have me, Master. Don't let them hurt me. It hurts so much, please don't let them have me," she implored, not certain if she was speaking English or Tel'næír, just that he would protect her.

* * *

Cutter fell to his knees beside her, not hesitating to wrap protective arms around her as she trembled and shook, sobbing in a jumbled mix of English and her own language, begging, pleading that he didn't allow anyone to hurt her anymore. "You son of a bitch, look what you've done!" he shouted at Lester, then murmured soothingly as Claudia flinched and whimpered.

The suited man was standing with a stricken look on his face, like he couldn't believe what he had done. "I-I didn't..." He foundered, lost for words.

Cutter didn't wait around to hear the rest. He slid an arm under Claudia's legs, wrapped the other around her back, and lifted her up off the ground, cradling her against his chest like she was a child. She had scratched bloody furrows in her arms, silver blood sluggishly oozing down her skin. Her sobs quieted to soft, hitching gasps and whimpers, her head buried against the crook of his neck. He felt something coil around his waist and didn't have to look to know it was her tail. He carried her out of the security room towards the office that she had somehow renovated into her own room, speaking softly to her as he went, lapsing into Gaelic without realising it.

The office was dim, softly lit only by a single lamp in the far corner. There were papers tacked on the walls, all of them written in a flowing language he didn't recognise and pegged as the dragons' writing. She'd pushed all the furniture together in the far corner into a rudimentary fort, and she'd collected pillows and blankets in the middle of it, all her clothes neatly stored away there along with several books and newspapers.

Cutter knelt down, gently lying her down on the blankets, though when he tried pulling away, she clung tighter to him and let out a pained, fearful wail. He sank down to sit beside her, brushing some of her hair out of her face. He didn't know if she was asleep or passed out, but she certainly wasn't awake, whimpering in her sleep. He looked down at the white-knuckle grip she had on his jacket, torn with indecision, but he reluctantly stretched out beside her, situating himself in the nest of pillows and blankets that she'd collected. It should've been uncomfortable, lying on the floor, but she'd arranged it all just so it felt more like sleeping on a bed than anything. He curled his arms around Claudia's form, gently pulling her against his chest, and began stroking her hair with one hand, murmuring softly to ease her. He just hoped she wouldn't kill him for doing this when she woke.

* * *

Claudia came awake abruptly, her mind snapping back to consciousness like a rubber band snapped taut. For a dizzying second, she didn't know where she was. Was she in the ARC or back in the Kennels, being sold to some new Master? Were the monsters still there, with hard hands and hissing voices and lustful eyes? Panic began to crawl into her, but then she became aware of warmth at her back, a quiet half-snore, and then an arm curled around her waist. She twisted around, dimly recognising that she was in her territory, in her nest.

Nick Cutter lay beside her, asleep, his breathing deep and even. It was his arm around her waist. Claudia sighed, eyes closing as she curled herself closer to him; she burrowed her face into the crook of his neck, inhaling the scent of his skin, and her tail coiled around his thigh. He was there with her. She was safe. He would protect her.


	18. Reassurance

When Cutter woke up, his head felt like it was packed with cotton, and a pain in his hip reminded him that he'd fallen asleep with his mobile and flick knife in his pocket and he was now laying on them. But there was also a warm body pressed up against his chest, curled around him like a limpet. Claudia had her head tucked against his neck, breathing softly on his skin. Her arms were curled around his waist, as his were around hers, and their legs were twined. It was remarkably alike to waking up in bed next to a girlfriend or a wife, except that there was a warm, scaly tail curled over his hip and around his thigh as well. Careful not to wake her, he looked at her arms where she'd clawed at herself in her panic. They had already healed, now only faint red lines where open wounds had once been, though flakes of dried, matte-grey blood still clung to her skin.

Turning his eyes back to her face, he saw how relaxed and calm she was now, all the fear and tension gone out of her, and without it, she looked...beautiful. Soft and young. He couldn't help but think back to earlier once again. He had been walking down the hallway, heard her screaming in horror, and gone running into the room to see her curled up in a ball in the corner of the room, screaming and sobbing, clawing her arms half to shreds, hands on her ears. It was no small mystery, and he hadn't hesitated to pick her up and take her back to her own room, where she'd feel safe and secure. He hadn't really expected her to cling to him like a burr, though. She didn't say what she had been...reliving or remembering, but it wasn't hard to guess, the way she'd clung to him in desperation, begging not to let anyone else hurt her, not to let anyone _have_ her. It made him want to be sick.

A stirring in his arms drew him out of his thoughts. Claudia yawned and stretched her entire body like a cat, arching like one against him. He tried to lean back a little bit, keep some space between them. Long lashes parted, revealing eyes that were more golden than brown. "Uhm...hello," he said, at a loss for anything else to say.

* * *

Claudia woke feeling warm and safe, with strong arms around her, and a rich, familiar scent in her nose, like spice and old paper and woodsmoke. She could feel one heart beating against hers, strong and steady, and she knew it was Master Nick. She stretched lazily and opened her eyes to see his only a few inches away, looking down at her. "Uhm...hello," he said at last, withdrawing his arms from around her, keeping space between them.

She withdrew her own arms and rolled away, sitting upright in one fluid motion, her feet tucked beneath her. "Thank you," she said quietly, head bowed, "for being so kind to me, Master."

He sighed as he sat up as well. "It's just – "

"Just Nick," she murmured, already knowing what he'd say.

A small grin crossed his lips. "Exactly." The smile disappeared as he looked at her arms concernedly. Her self-inflicted wounds were already healed, but faint lines still remained. He looked back up at her, eyes solemn; she nearly giggled because, for all his graveness, his hair was still sleep-matted on one side and sticking up erratically in other places. "Are you alright?" he asked.

The impulse to laugh disappeared. She had struggled to push away those memories for so long, to bury them in someplace deep and dark, so when they resurfaced, they had done so with a terrible, terrible vengeance. She had been able to hear their voices as if they were still right before her, feel their touch as she could that night in the guard room of the Kennel. But the dark, festering weight those memories carried had faded some, didn't cut quite so deep, because something had been done that'd never been done before. Someone had taken care of her, comforted her and promised to keep her safe, held her when she was so breakable. For the first time in a long, long time, perhaps for the first time ever, she felt...better. "Yes," she replied honestly, raising her eyes to his face. "I am. Thank you. I mean that."

The Human man nodded, then looked down at his own hands. "Claudia, I want you to know...there are people in the ARC that...well, you can talk to them whenever you'd like about...what happened to you. They could help you so something like that doesn't happen again. They won't tell anyone what you talk about. And, well, you can talk to us, if you like. We won't tell anyone, either, if you don't want," he informed her in a low, rough voice. Pale blue eyes shifted back up to her face. "And I will _never_ refuse to listen or think less of you or anything like that. I promise."

Claudia stared at him for a long moment, unable to think of anything to say. No-one ever said anything so kind, so welcoming. Simply thanking him seemed terribly inadequate, given all that he'd done for them, for her, and words failed on her tongue.

At her silence, he shifted uncomfortably, then stood. "Right then. I'm, uhm, I'll just...go, yeah?" Careful not to tread on anything of hers, he stepped out of her room, the door drifting closed behind her.

She watched him go, then closed her eyes. "Thank you...Nick."

* * *

"I hope that slimy, suited git has learnt his lesson," Stephen growled in a low voice. He'd vaguely heard about what happened with Lester's attempted interrogation of Claudia from the soldiers, but as always, it was Cutter who gave it to him straight and clear. She'd broken down, apparently reliving some God-awful memory of being assaulted and worse, because Lester had shoved her in a small room with two soldiers and started demanding answers. "How is she, mate?" he asked, looking up at the Scotsman.

Cutter had gone home for a shower and a change of clothes, having slept in the ARC, and he was still monosyllabic after the ordeal. The professor was good at that, brooding and simmering under his own personal thundercloud, but it could be dissipated if he was coaxed into talking about it. "She's...better. I think. I hope. It's not quite easy to read her, but she said she was doing better, and I believe her." He scowled down at the report he was currently filling out as if it'd done him some personal injury.

Stephen glanced back across the table at him once more. They worked like that often, sitting on opposite sides of a table, each working on their separate tasks. Unlike the professor, though, he did all his paperwork on time, so he was cleaning his favourite rifle. He tried to do it often, after the jamming incident in the shopping centre, and considering all the shite that they managed to get covered in from anomaly to anomaly. "You really think that?" he prompted.

"I think...that she _is_ getting better. I think they all are, really. We just have to keep at it, helping them," Cutter replied at last, tapping the pen against the tabletop. "I mean, all they have ever known is people – humans – hurting them. They aren't used to having anyone help them, especially not us, and it'll take time for them to get used to it. We just have to keep reminding them of it."

The tracker nodded agreement, unable to hide the small smile that came to his face. It was rare that the other man was ever so keen on other people's emotions. Cutter didn't believe in psychology – it wasn't a real science, according to him – but sometimes Stephen wondered if the Scotsman wouldn't make a good headshrinker. But in this instance, he had to agree with his friend. It was clear to see it when Connor hissed and recoiled whenever someone reached for him too fast, when Matt and Ryan flinched whenever someone shouted, when Jess and Sarah whimpered whenever someone got too close. They had learnt from childhood that human beings were a source of pain, not comfort, and it took a long time to correct learned behaviour like that.

He began fitting his rifle back together, almost able to do it by muscle memory at this point. As he was fitting together the last pieces, the shrill sound of the detector going off cut through the peaceable silence. Stephen glanced over at Cutter and smirked. "No rest for the wicked, then?"

"Never," the Scotsman agreed as he stood up.

* * *

They had taken over a house as their base in this time. It wasn't difficult to get papers faked, considering how simple the technology was here compared to their own time. Tracking down the stray creatures, however, was proving to be a tad more difficult. The simpler technology might be an advantage, but it was also a drawback as well, as it lacked all the programmes that were used to trace the beasts. In the post-War era, if a creature ever escaped, it could be tracked and recaptured within hours, days if the Keepers tasked with catching it were incompetent. But here, they had to do it the old-fashioned way, searching on foot, looking through the city.

Finding seven needles in a city of eight and a half million straws was an impossible task.

Which was why they brought along a magnet.

The Keeper hummed to herself as she admired her favourite toys. She'd brought along an entire kit, anticipating what was to come once they'd caught their quarry. Two of the escaped creatures were former pets of hers, and she fully anticipated having them back so she could remind them of their place in the world. Still humming, she spread all her toys out on the cloth she'd spread over the tabletop, admiring the gleam of shiny metal and sharp edges as she set about tending to them. Kneeling on the floor, her own pet was visibly trembling at the sight of all her toys. It knew very intimately what she could do with them, had experienced for itself, and was well-trained to fear the sight.

The door whispered open, but she didn't look 'round until a hand grasped the back of her chair. "Keeping busy for when we catch them?" asked a low, silky voice from behind her.

"Of course. I imagine you've brought along your knife set?" she asked, tilting her head up to leer at him. Of all the Keepers that she'd ever worked with, he was no doubt her favourite, the only one she had ever met with her same flair for breaking the creatures, for making them stay broken, for causing pain and keeping a pet on the brink of death for weeks. In fact, the two pets she hoped to reclaim were the same two that she had trained with him. She didn't often remember pets, but whenever she worked with him, those memories were well-maintained and cherished.

He returned the smile, his gaze slipping downwards. She'd unzipped her uniform so that the top of her lace bra was visible, and he was devouring the sight. "Of course I did. Couldn't let you do all the work, could I?"

"Wouldn't be very gentlemanly of you if you did, Philip," she replied, lifting the knife she was currently cleaning and placed the sharp edge of it under his chin.

He smirked, and with a flick of a wrist, the hand he had resting on the back of her chair had snaked around her shoulder, a thin, deadly-keen stiletto resting against the top of her breasts, just pressing into her skin. "Don't forget that knife-play _is_ my foreplay, Helena."

Purring, she ran her tongue over her top lip. "How could I ever?" Pulling the knife away from his chin, she asked, "Subject 83?"

"Ah, we're getting some samples for it to track. We'll find them. And once we do..." His eyes darkened in anticipation.

"It's a date," she agreed, reaching out to run a hand up his thigh.


	19. Progress

**A/N: kicking off the new year with some new chapters!**

* * *

Pterosaurs were _shite,_ Becker decided as he walked back into the armoury, unstrapping his body armour and shrugging it off. The dinosaur of the week was of the flying flavour, like a giant, oversized pelican. According to Cutter, it was called _Cycnorhamphus suevicus,_ a name that meant 'swan beak.' Oh God, he was becoming one of _them._ In the time that he'd started working at the ARC, he'd learnt more about dinosaurs that he ever thought that he would in his entire life, his brain automatically absorbing all of Cutter's weird esoterica. He kind of hated it. Herding them back through had been a spectacle in and of itself. The Cycnorhamphus had been as dumb as bricks and had shuffled about like great clumsy hang-gliders on feet, honking and squawking, needing to be herded back through like geese.

As he hung up his armour and set his gun back in the rack, he noticed that Matt was sitting at the table where the off-duty shift liked to play cards. Curiously enough, the other bloke was reading a cookbook. "Do you like cooking, then?" asked Becker, watching as Matt made some notes on a small scrap of paper next to the book; it wasn't in English, though, but in some peculiar, flowy-looking writing that he took as the dragon's language. It was intricate and complex, and instead of going left to right, they wrote vertical, going from top to bottom, like Chinese characters.

"No." Matt was a big fan of one-word answers when he could get away with it.

"Then why are you reading a cookbook?" Becker pressed. The ARC shrink suggested that it'd be good to try and coax the dragons into talking whenever possible, even if about the most mundane of things. Something about building trust and all that shite. Honestly, he was just curious. Cookbooks weren't exactly page-turning reading material.

The Irish dragon's eyes rolled up towards him, one eyebrow lifting. After a moment, he tucked his paper in the page as a marker, closed the book, pushed to his feet, and walked over to Becker. "Shoulder," he said, prodding the captain with one finger. He tended to keep very few dragonish traits about him, but save for his teeth, which were slightly sharper than normal, and his fingernails, which were always dense and dark, narrowing to barely blunted points; in short, being prodded by Matt tended to _hurt_. "Round. Sirloin. Tenderloin. Skirt. Ribs. Brisket. Plate. Breast. Shank." He jabbed at the captain with each cut he named, advancing for each step that Becker took backwards.

The soldier was starting to get pale, and he swatted away the dragon's hands, not liking that gleam in his eyes. "Alright. Alright, enough!" he insisted.

Matt's face was a picture of seriousness, but then he grinned, turned around, walked back to his chair, sat down, and opened his book once more, picking up his notes.

Becker stared at him hard for a moment. "You've got a sick sense of humour, you know that?" he asked at last.

Making a peculiar _churr_ low in his throat that sounded like a cross between a chuckle and a purr, Matt turned another page, writing down something on his notes.

* * *

Gods, it was so easy to poke fun at these Humans. Matt was hiding a grin in the pages of his book, making another note. He finally had a diet that consisted of something other than crickets and chicken fat, and what's more, they were allowed to cook for themselves as well. He hated cooking for Humans, because some of the things they ate positively nauseated him, but cooking for himself, it wasn't quite so bad. He made notes on some recipes, deciding to try them for himself. The soldiers didn't seem to ever remember that he ate very little. Of all the ten species, skydancers had the smallest diet. A firebreather could put away sixty kilos of meat, a waterdriver might devour a half-tonne of fish, but skydancers would be happy with a brace of pheasant and a bucketful of insects.

Still, it was fun to poke at them. And even if he could eat an entire Human creature, he wouldn't do it. He didn't eat junk food.

Now _Ryan_, on the other hand...

* * *

Danny loved breaking into the ARC. Of course, it was all in the name of security – plugging leaks and weak spots – but in actuality, it was just fun. Abseiling down the ventilation shafts, crawling through the place, he found it absolutely thrilling. Singing in his head as he crawled through the shaft, trying to decide which room to break into today and how to avoid Becker, he was surprised to hear a voice issue from above him, "What are you doing, Master?"

It was instinct to try and sit up, and the top of his head _clanged_ sharply on the top of the vent. "Ow! Bugger," he muttered, then turned over onto his back.

Sarah was hanging upside down like a bat from one of the vents that he'd never been able to get into because it led directly to the piping. At first, he didn't understand how the hell she was staying up there, until he glimpsed past her to see a long, golden-scaled tail curled tightly around a pipe, her toes hooked on the edge of the vent shaft to keep her balanced. She had her hands resting lightly on either side of the shaft, but there was no tension in her arms, nor in her legs. It was her tail that supported her body weight. The dragon's tail was one of the most versatile limbs in the animal kingdom. It could pick up an egg without cracking it or exert enough pressure to break bones. It could support the entirety of their body weight without strain or discomfort, and could even pick up a pen and write with it. Nearly a fifth of a dragon's 572 bones were located in the spine and tail.

Danny didn't know any of that, of course, and he thought it was quite incredible that she could simply dangle there so simply. "Hullo," he said. It was all he could think to say. After all, how often did one meet someone in a ventilation shaft?

"Hello," she replied. Her long black hair was in two braids, and he could see small, downy gold-white feather tufts at the nape of her neck and in her hair. She was the only dragon that had the feathers, he'd noticed, and apparently, it was a trait unique to her breed. "What are you doing, Master?" she repeated.

"Oh, I, erm...it's just Danny, by the way. I was just..."

"Breaking and entering under the guise of security reasons?" she inquired in puzzlement. "That is what Captain Becker says. Master Lester says that you are making a nuisance of yourself."

He gave a muffled snort that echoed softly in the vent. "Yeah, bit of both, really. What, erm, what are _you_ doing?"

"Searching for someplace quiet. Humans can be very noisy," she answered.

"Isn't that the truth? We're loud little monkeys, aren't we? Bet you lot find us hilarious," he chortled, his original task almost completely forgotten by this point.

"Idiotic is more the word," she muttered, then clapped one hand over her own mouth in shock at what she'd said. Oh, gods, now she was in for it. Sarah bit down on her tongue hard enough to taste blood, waiting for his anger, for the scolding and punishment that would surely follow such an insult to her Human betters.

But the peculiarly red-haired Dannyquinn only burst out laughing, laughing so hard he had to cover his mouth to stifle the noise – sound carried easily in the metal passages – and tears came from the corners of his eyes. Her hearts gradually slowed back to their normal rhythm, reminding her that they wouldn't punish her, that she was allowed to say whatever she so wished, even though she still doubted it to be entirely true. When he managed to get himself under control once more, he said in a laughter-strained voice, "God, you got a sense of humour under all that, don't you?" Wiping his face with the corner of one sleeve, he grinned up at her once more. "Well, I'll leave you to your peace and quiet, Sarah. I've got a captain to piss off."

Turning back over onto his stomach, he crawled away, heading deeper into the metal passages. Sarah nibbled on her lower lip for a moment, contemplating.

Danny was debating which to try first, the armoury or the firing range, but then a soft voice echoed down the vents, "Captain Becker is in the security room, Dannyquinn." Grinning, he made his way forward. Progress.

* * *

There were no bathhouses in these years, not the way her species had. The Romans of old got the idea from dragonkind, the bathhouses. If Claudia truly thought about it, she could remember being brought into one of the bathhouses as a hatchling, being allowed to paddle about in the shallow ends. They were endlessly deep and fed by underground hot springs, full of minerals that always made their hides glossy and strong. There were no such things anymore, but the ARC did have quite excellent facilities, including a large, deep bath, and it was here that she preferred to bathe.

Claudia slid a little lower in the hot water until it lapped about her chin, steam dampening her skin. Jess sat behind her, kneeling on the tile floors, and was brushing out her hair for her. _"Do your memories still plague you?"_ the waterdriver asked in their language. They spoke amongst themselves in their own tongue much more now.

_"Not so much anymore, no,"_ she replied, tilting her arms to see the faded pink lines where she'd scratched herself earlier. By the time she got out of the bath, they would be gone. _"The Human man…he helped me. He…took care of me."_

Jess tilted her head slightly. _"So…he is not so terrible, then? The pale-haired Master?"_

A small smile curved her lips as she smiled into the warm, steam-filled air. _"He is no Master,"_ she murmured.

_"If he is not a Master, and he is not a Keeper…what is he?"_ Jess inquired, baffled. She had spent the least amount of time with the Humans other than Caroline, still fearful of them and their ways, and what time she did spend near Humans was with the not-Keeper with the oddly unmoving hair, Becker.

_"He is…Nick."_

The comb paused in her hair as Jess's hands grew still. When she spoke, her voice was hushed and urgent. _"You should not say such things."_

_"Why should I not?"_ Claudia demanded. _"I am a free dragon, now, I shall say what I wish."_

_"We are not free, sister. Not unless I have mistaken the symbolism of this,"_ the younger whispered, reaching beneath the other woman's hair to curl her fingers around the metal and leather of the Collar. _"We may wish that we were free, may pretend that we are, may convince ourselves that we are, but this does not lie."_

Claudia tilted her head back on the edge of the tub, gritting her teeth. Jess was right. They might wish themselves free, but they were still Collared, still bound. As much as she hated it, as much as she despised and loathed its presence, there was nothing she could do to remove it –

An abrupt thought seized her mind. _"What if we could remove it?"_

_"Remove the Collar? Sister, have you gone soft in the skull?"_ Jess gasped in shock. _"The Collar cannot be removed."_

Claudia sat up and twisted around to look at her, grasping the edge of the tub. _"Yes, it can. There must be a way. Perhaps it could not be done in that time, but here, where there are no Keepers or Masters to stop us, who's to say we cannot find a way to have it removed? The Humans would help us,"_ she insisted in an urgent voice, a swell of hope blooming in her chest, both hearts fluttering with it. The idea of not having a Collar, of never again feeling the chafe of leather and metal about her neck, was an intoxicating one.

But Jess's tone was stern, if fearful. _"Not once has a Collar ever been removed. Not once. Do you not think that others have not tried before? After the War was won and lost, don't you think the rebellious ones tried to resist? Not a one of them succeeded in anything other than their own deaths, and that is exactly what will become of you if you pursue this foolish endeavor. All you will do is get yourself killed, Claudia. Just let it be."_

Disheartened by the words of her companion, Claudia sat back, frowning. _"Yes...of course."_ Reaching down with one hand, she pulled the stopper from the tub and let the water run away, rising to her feet and reaching for one of the many towels on the shelf.

As she stepped out, Jess caught her arm. _"I do not mean to upset you, Claudia. I merely ask that you do not do anything so dangerous as this. It'll only end badly."_

_"I know, sister. And I thank you for that,"_ she replied quietly, though her mind still raced. Jess might not believe it was possible, but Claudia knew that it had to be.

They'd get the damned things off somehow.


	20. Outside

"You want to take them...outside? Into the city?" Lester asked, eyebrows near touching his hairline as he stared at Cutter, the Scotsman standing across from Lester's desk.

"Yep." He said it so casually, like it was no big deal, none whatsoever, this madcap idea of taking mentally-unstable shapeshifting creatures with tremendous physical strength and a nasty habit of throwing tables and breathing fire when panicked, out into the public.

With a low sigh, he reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "And may I ask, for the love of all things sacred, _why_ you wish to make this suicide-by-dragon attempt?" Lester queried, rubbing wearily at the beginnings of a headache behind his temples.

Cutter was entirely unfazed by the suited man's attitude, speaking in that same casual, almost relaxed sort of voice. "Because it would do them good to see other people besides us, to see just how different our time is from theirs. They've had only a limited bubble of contact with our time, and let's face it, _this_ particular bubble isn't exactly a stunning example of normality."

_Isn't that the bloody truth?_ Lester thought wryly. "And I imagine that if I went ahead and refused your request, you and your island of misfit toys would...merely disregard everything I say and smuggle them out the back?" He posed it as a question, though he knew it for a truth, and from the smirk on Cutter's face, the bloody man knew it too. This lot had to be the most stubborn, bullheaded, independent-to-a-fault civilians he had ever seen in all his bloody career, and the Scot was the most stubborn of them all. He would outlive God to have the last word. Rubbing his forehead once more, Lester decided to spare himself the migraine and save his breath as well. "So, what exactly is it that you propose? Surely not all of them at once?"

"No. Just one or two, with myself or someone from the team, taking turns as they decide to." Cutter paused for a moment, and Lester dreaded what the maverick would say next. However, the Scotsman's next words were surprisingly reflective. "They don't believe us, you know? Not entirely. When we tell them they don't have to be afraid of us, that we won't hurt them. They might say they understand, but a part of them doesn't believe it. You can see it. In their eyes. The way they flinch." His hand came up in an absent-minded motion to touch his own shoulder, where the seven were all branded with the cabalistic likeness of a dragon. Like cattle.

Lester was silent. He was beginning to understand just how breakable these poor creatures truly were, how fragile their psyches were. He still had nightmares about the incident with Claudia, seeing her scream and sob and beg not to be hurt anymore, clawing at herself as if to physically remove the memories. But he also had nightmares about a great black dragon filling the corridors with violet fire, the smell of burnt flesh and hair permeating the air.

"Conditions," he said at last, and it was Cutter's turn to raise eyebrows to his hairline. "If you are so very bound and determined to do this, then I must at least pretend to have some semblance of control here. No more than two, for now. I expect you to be with them at all times. You'll stay well away from large crowds, and at the first bloody _whiff_ of trouble, I want you either on your way back to the ARC or calling one of the military teams." Cutter frowned at that, but Lester hastily overrode the protest that was soon to come. "No exceptions on this, Professor. I know that they're the victims of the most horrendous sort of abuse, and I very deeply sympathize with them, but we cannot forget that they are also capable of violence on a scale no human being can manage. And you'll have a tranquiliser on-hand as well. Only as a last resort. And be back at a reasonable hour as well," he added.

Cutter smirked, "Yes, _Mum._ Anything else?"

"If there is, I'll be sure to inform you," Lester replied airily, then flicked his fingers towards the door as if dismissing a student from the headmaster's office. "On your way."

The pale-haired man rose and walked towards the door, then paused and glanced back at him. "Y'know, Lester...sometimes...you're alright."

"Bite your tongue!" he exclaimed, then under his breath muttered, "Peasant."

"I heard that!"

* * *

"Outside?" The look on Connor's face might have been the same as if Cutter just proposed they put on capes and spandex and fly to the moon. "Not to the Forest, but _outside?_ In the _City?"_

The Scotsman nodded as he looked around at the five equally astonished faces; Matt and Ryan, as always, were stoic and unreadable. "Yep. Lester's actually agreed to it. Just two of you for now, but you can all go outside," he replied, pulling out a chair and sitting down.

A look of puzzlement started to cross their faces, and it was Matt who spoke next, "But...why?"

Before Cutter could answer, Emily spoke up. "Because you're a part of this time now. We've no plan to send you back, the anomaly's long since closed, and it would do you all good to know more about our time. It's your home now." She was sitting on the edge of the table near to where Matt was sitting on the floor, and reaching down, she lightly rested her fingertips against his shoulder; he didn't shy away and leant slightly back into the touch.

"Exactly," Cutter said with a slight smile.

Lurking in the far corner of the room, Caroline's hissing voice broke into the conversation. She was the only one, out of all seven, that had yet to become more forthcoming or relaxed around the Humans. Whereas the others were gradually adjusting to being treated like equals and acting as such, she still insisted it was all an elaborate façade, refusing to trust a single one of them. Of the seven Dragons in the ARC, Caroline was the only one that most actively avoided. There was something twitchy about her that made Cutter uneasy. "And what exactly must we give in return for these excursions? The rules that we must obey?" she demanded in her sharp, slightly metallic voice.

The easy smile that came to Cutter's face faltered slightly, replaced by a small frown. "Yes, there's rules. But to keep you safe, that's all. People of this time don't know anything about the anomalies or the creatures, and they certainly don't know about dragons. If they saw someone walking down the street with a tail, they'd probably try shooting you. Or causing some other sort of panic," he replied.

"Oh, of course. To keep us _safe._ Because _that_ is what you all are so very concerned about. And why should you not? A Master should keep careful eye on his Servants lest his _property_ be damaged," Caroline sneered back at him.

To their surprise, it was Ryan who snarled something harsh in their language at her. She bared her teeth and hissed back, and a deep, threatening growl rumbled out of his chest. For the briefest moment, his eyes shifted from blue-grey towards a deep, bloody scarlet. He spat something else, the words coming out not like music but like the sound of two boulders being ground together. Caroline hissed softly but slanted her gaze away from his, shrinking back into her corner.

"You said that only two of us would go outside?" Sarah's soft lilt drew their focus once more.

"Only two at a time. It's easier to stay together that way, and we'll be with you, too," Stephen replied, having already been informed of the plan. "And it's up to you who goes when."

None of them jumped up to volunteer for _that,_ but Connor looked up at them through his lashes. "I have not seen the City in nearly one-and-ten years," he murmured quietly, reaching up to lightly brush the red band that marked his Collar. None of the Humans knew it, but the different colours which marked a Dragon's Collar declared how dangerous they were. White cards were given to the very young, the very old, and the feeble, those of timid and fearful natures. Green cards were for those who were overall complacent but not defenceless. Yellow cards were those of the military, those who were stubborn and obstinate, more capable of violence than green or white. Red cards, however, were given to those considered dangerous, who'd attacked a Master and were like to do it again, used only for the military as cannon fodder. Red cards had only five years to live before being euthanized. Connor had been given his red card after he'd assaulted the Keeper that'd tried to break him, and he'd been only months away from the five-year mark and his death sentence when they escaped. "I would like to go outside, if you permit."

Sitting beside him, Claudia reached out with a gentle hand to touch her companion's arm. "And I will go with you, should nobody else wish to go in my stead." She glanced around at the others, but they all shook their heads. Her eyes shifted upwards to Cutter. "We will go to the City."

* * *

As promised, Cutter had brought them to one of the less-crowded places in London, walking down a street lined with small shops and vendors. It was the middle of the workday, and not many people were on the sidewalks. He walked with Claudia at his side; Connor walked between Stephen and Abby a few paces behind them.

And Claudia had yet to let go of his arm. It wasn't so bad, having a pretty woman on his arm like a burr, but at the same time, he was worried about how all the new and strange affected her anxiety. She and Connor both understood that under no circumstances were they allowed to show any sort of dragon features, but he knew that if she could, her tail would be lashing and her claws flexing. Her eyes watched the people that passed close with fearful caution, her breath catching whenever someone accidentally brushed up against her or stepped too close, and she'd startle whenever a car door slammed. "Hey," he murmured softly, laying his hand over hers where it clutched his jacket sleeve like a lifeline. She startled again at the touch, whipping around to look at him. "It's alright. I've got you."

A small, weak smile pulled at her lips, but it still reached her eyes. "I am sorry. I've never done this before."

"What? Walked down a street?" he queried, baffled.

She laughed softly, in the way that most dragons did, a low warbling in her throat. "I like the way you say 'down.' And no, I have not walked _dune_ a street. I am a house Servant. We rarely leave the confines of our Master's home, except on special tasks, which are few and far between. And even then there are side streets which a Dragon must take. We do not walk amongst Humans like this."

"Oh." He mused over that for a moment. "What's so special about the way I say 'down'?"

Claudia smiled wider, shaking her hair back. "Your inflection. I've never heard anyone speak the way you do."

"Scottish, y'mean?"

"Yes. I find it...endearing."

He flushed like a schoolboy, being told that his accent was 'endearing.' Most wouldn't say the same. Hell, he didn't think that any woman had ever told him his accent was endearing, or any variation of such. A soft gasp drew him out of his thoughts. Claudia had pulled away slightly, though not releasing his arm, guiding him over. There was a shop with a display of crystal and glass figurines in the window. In the forefront of the display was a crystal dragon, with golden claws and horns, the outstretched wings tinted red with gold edges. "Aye, you're famous," he laughed, seeing the delight in her eyes.

Claudia glanced over at him. "What do we do now?" she asked.

"I dunno. Are you hungry?"

She shrugged in a nonchalant sort of way, but a quiet rumble from her stomach made her flush. "Maybe a little."

He grinned. "Ever had ice cream?"

The answer was no, though a part of him had already anticipated that. Glancing back over his shoulder at Stephen and Abby, he winked and nodded towards a small ice cream shop just a few paces ahead; they both returned a smile and nodded. "Now, it comes in different flavours. Which would you like? There's vanilla, chocolate, strawberry – "

"I love strawberries," Claudia murmured quietly, more to herself than him.

"Then strawberry it is," he replied, and was surprised to see a faint blush colour her cheeks.

It was hard not to laugh at them, walking down the street after they'd left the shop. Both of the Dragons marvelled at the taste of ice cream, pleasantly surprised by how sweet and cold it was, and watching them make faces as they ate the dessert was enough to make Stephen and Abby fight down giggles the whole time. Then, with a look of concentration, Connor decided to bite off the entire top of the cone. For a moment, his expression was one of pleased surprise, but then it turned to surprised discomfort, wrinkling his nose. "Ah! Hurts," he cried once he'd swallowed the ice cream, hand pressed to his mouth.

"That's called brain freeze, mate," Stephen chortled. "Happens when you eat something real cold too fast. Just give it a second, it'll go away."

Claudia burbled a happy little laugh, and Cutter couldn't help but smile with her. _Bite me, Lester,_ he thought to himself. Things were going positively splendid. Three blocks and not a single act of violence committed.

But maybe he'd spoken too soon.

Claudia glanced across the street, and all at once, her body locked down, going completely rigid. Cutter was yanked to a stop, because trying to move a dragon that didn't want to be moved was a bit like trying to move a mountain. Her hand curled around his arm tight enough that it surely bruised, her nails cutting through his sleeve to dig into his flesh, no longer nails but claws. Looking down at her hand, he saw the glittering red pattern of scales beginning to appear. Startled, he looked up at her face to see that she'd gone ghostly white, and more scales were beginning to form, creeping up her neck, across her cheekbones. _Oh, bugger._

He moved to put himself directly in front of her, both hands grasping her shoulders. "Claudia? Claudia, what is it? What's wrong?" he asked anxiously, afraid that someone was going to notice, or that she wasn't going to stop changing.

Her pale lips formed a single word: "Keepers."


	21. Keeper

As she walked through the halls of the ARC, awaiting the others' return, Sarah found the Dannyquinn sitting by himself, in an empty room, with a small slip in his hand. He was staring down at it with a faraway look to his face. Quietly, she edged up behind him curiously, wondering what he was holding. It was a small rectangle, a photograph that was frayed and yellow along the edges, well-creased on the folds. Before she could get a look at the faces in the photo, the Human man's hand folded the photo over again, turning around to look at her. Blushing, she looked towards the floor. "Forgive me. Might I ask what you are looking at?" she asked softly.

Danny shifted slightly in his chair. "Yeah, sure. Here, sit down." He pulled out the chair beside her, and she anxiously sat on the edge of it, still not liking to sit on chairs as if she was an equal to him. It made her nervous. "It's...erm, well, that's me and my brother, Patrick, back when we were kids."

Sarah peered at the photograph. It was indeed of two boys, one older, one younger. The taller of the two was long and gangly, not yet grown into his frame, with a huge grin on his face, a shock of burnished copper-coloured hair gleaming in the sun – Dannyquinn, she knew. His long arms were draped around a shorter, smaller boy with floppy nut-brown hair and warm brown eyes, not quite having hit that growth spurt, teeth slightly crooked but endearingly so. Patrick, then. "Where is your brother?" she asked out of curiosity.

His expression spasmed. "I...I lost him. He disappeared," he replied quietly, lightly brushing his thumb across the photo. "I was supposed to keep him safe."

Sarah might not trust these Humans, not yet, but she did, to a degree, like this Dannyquinn. Because, for all his bluster and smirk, there was a vulnerability about him, some darkness that hung about him like another shadow. It was a darkness that she recognised, for it hung around them all, particularly darkly for her.

On her shoulder, above the burn of her Brand, was a dark, starburst-shaped birthmark which labeled her _Xian Chú_ – infertile. It was that mark that had meant she would be entered into the military service rather than join the other females in the Breeding Programme, but even then, she knew that she would more than likely be sold as a whore than a soldier. She would never be a Mother to her own Hatchlings, but she still enjoyed caring for children, yes, even the Human ones, and something in him seemed so childlike when he spoke of his brother, as if he was still that gangly, lanky-limbed boy that'd – in his mind – let his brother down. The bonds between siblings, between any family, was near-sacred to Dragons, and she could understand the pain of losing a sibling. Perhaps that was what made the Mother that'd nearly died so long ago wake again, wanting to reach out and curl her arms around this man that reminded her of a child.

One hand came up, carefully, and she touched her fingers to the back of his hair.

Danny twitched a little in surprise. In the past several months, she would allow others to lay a comforting hand on her, but to his knowledge, she'd never once initiated the contact before. Sarah lightly raked her fingertips down through the back of his hair, from the crown of his head down to the nape of his neck, her nails ever-so-lightly scratching against his scalp. She was pleased, though not entirely surprised, that his hair was just as fluffy and silky as it appeared to be. "I am sorry, Dannyquinn. It hurts a great deal to lose your family," she murmured softly.

The copper smiled a little, crooked and familiar, then folded up the photo and tucked it back in his wallet. "Mm. Well, it's all right, Sarah. Everything's going to be alright," he replied quietly, reaching up to touch her wrist. Then, straightening up slightly, he seemed to shrug away the brief moment of softness and was once more the hard-fisted former copper turned dinosaur wrangler. "Wonder what Cutter and them are doing now."

* * *

Not once, in all her years, had Claudia ever been so happy. Walking outside was a privilege she rarely ever experienced, and now she was free. Not a single Human looked at her twice. She was no different than they were. Her Collar meant nothing to them, their eyes skated over it with indifference, should they even look at her at all. Her anxiety had gradually begun to diminish as the realisation set in, and the warmth of Nick at her side was an ease to her mind as well. The fear coiled tight in her stomach had loosened when he placed one hand over hers, reassured her so kindly.

A part of her that was still a fearful Servant afraid of Humans warned her, insisted that she was being careless, placing faith in him, coming to depend on him too much. But the part of her that walked free amongst Humans drowned out that persistent little voice. Seeing the crystal sculpture had made both her hearts leap. Nothing so beautiful was ever created in the image of _her_ kind after the War.

And ice cream! She had heard of it before, had seen former Masters and Mistresses eat it, but she'd never had any for herself. It was so sweet and cold, dissolving on her tongue and making her mouth feel numb with cold, the taste of strawberries on her tongue. No wonder the Humans enjoyed it so. Nick had allowed her to hold onto his arm the entire time, smiling in a way that made her stomach feel peculiar. When her kind brother tried to eat an entire mouthful at once, he was apparently afflicted by a brief spell of brain-freeze. It was an affliction she'd never heard of before, but the face he made in experiencing it had made her laugh all the more.

She glanced across the street, not looking at any one thing in particular, merely observing her surroundings, when the sight of a sickeningly familiar face made her go entirely still. All at once, her body felt doused in ice water, and not in a good way, as was with ice cream. This was the chilling, numbing, terrifying cold of absolute fear. Her hearts stopped for a moment before picking up double-time then, pounding in her ears and making her to sway on her feet. Unaware of it, the hold she kept on a Human façade began to slip, her claws sliding out to dig into Nick's arm, scales crawling across her skin, and she could feel the prickling roil on her back which signified the emergence of her wings.

Over the rushing in her ears, she became aware of Nick's voice, speaking to her from faraway. "Claudia? Claudia, what is it? What's wrong?"

She couldn't remember how to work her tongue. Still, her numb lips formed the word that still made her shiver to hear, "Keepers."

_"What?"_ Nick cast a glance about, then pulled on her arms, hastily drawing her into a narrow side street between two shops, angling his body in front of hers so nobody could see her from the street. But it was too late. They'd already been seen, they were known, they were found... "What are you talking about?" he hissed softly.

"Keepers. The Keepers. I saw them. They've come for us, they're going to take us, they're taking us _back_," she rasped out, her body shaking. Oh, gods, Caroline was right. They were going to be dragged back into their Chains and Cages. The Keepers had come for them. They were going to be taken, they were –

"Claudia? Claudia, look at me!" Nick said, grasping her shoulders. It was then that she remembered how to breathe, drawing in great, ragged gasps of air. "Now you listen to me. Nobody is taking you anywhere. Hey, you look at me," he insisted. "Nobody's taking you anywhere. You're not going back. I won't let anyone take you anywhere. Okay?"

She still couldn't breathe, her chest constricted as though a hand had clenched around her lungs. Her hearts were thundering in her ears, and she leant forward, arms sliding around him as she burrowed her head against him, between his neck and the collar of his jacket, inhaling slowly. He smelt of woodsmoke, of old paper and rich spices, and he felt so warm against her, almost hot. Her eyes closed slightly, jaw tight as she focused on him, on his presence. He had only one heart, and she listened to its steady, even rhythm. He wouldn't let her be taken. He would protect her from the Keepers, she knew he would.

A part of her was terrified, how much power he held over her. Not because he used force or violence, but rather because of his kindness, the affection that he showed. He had built up something in her that could either lead to her downfall or to her uplifting. But all she could do was hold on a little tighter, pressing herself closer into him. Oh, gods, this was so _dangerous._ They were balanced on the edge of a precipice. On one side was the thing that had never been accomplished before – the peaceful co-existence of Humans and Dragons – but on the other was their mutual demise and destruction. The strange, foreign sensation of trust was beginning to work its way into her hearts like the rhythmic rise and fall of his breathing, and there was little that she could do to stop it. Only pray that they could walk through this fire unburned.

* * *

Cutter wasn't sure what to do. She was pressed up against him in a way that would be terribly intimate in any other situation, and he was afraid of what might happen because of their proximity. He hadn't been so close to a woman in near eight years. But then she whimpered softly, shivering fearfully against him, and anything _else_ he might've felt died away, replaced by a fierce surge of protectiveness. He wrapped his arms around her at last, hands on her back, and sliding a hand up her back, he found the ridges where her wing joints were, just alongside her scapulae, gently rubbing between them. Claudia began purring then, a low, velvety noise not like the others made, softer than that. He'd never heard her purr before, and the soft sound hummed in his own chest.

"Let's get back to the ARC, okay?" he asked softly, still rubbing small circles between her wing joints. There were pressure points there that could be painful, but when only gentle pressure was applied, then it was rather pleasurable. "Are you alright to go now?"

She didn't take her head away from his shoulder, but she did tilt her chin down slightly to look at her own hands. The sharp, dark claws that extended from her fingertips retracted back into regular fingernails, and the shimmering dusting of red scales along the back of her hands and wrists faded. Glancing down at her face, he saw that those on her cheekbones and neck had faded away as well. "I am alright," she replied softly, but as his arms started to pull away, she grasped his wrists tightly, halting his retreat. "Don't...don't let go." Her voice was small and vulnerable, not that of a grown woman, but more like that of a small child, asking for someone to hold her hand so the monster under the bed wouldn't get her.

Cutter offered her his arm again, and she hugged it in her grip, head on his shoulder as they walked out of the narrow alley. Connor hadn't failed to notice Claudia's panic, and he was still being soothed by Abby and Stephen, both of them pale. The lab tech looked up at the professor, and they didn't have to speak to each other. "Alright, c'mon, we're going back to the ARC. It'll be alright," Stephen murmured, coaxing the other Dragon to his feet. Connor was shaking as well, his hands visibly trembling as they guided him back towards the Hilux. Cutter cast a glance over his shoulder, wondering who it was that had sparked such fear in them.

* * *

Helena pressed herself flat against the cool bricks, not daring to move from where she stood until she knew that they were gone. This time was so foreign to her now; she had stopped thinking of it as hers a very long time ago. All thoughts of her past life were completely irrelevant now. So irrelevant, actually, that she'd entirely forgotten about the man she once called her husband, still very much alive and well, in this time.

She had seen him first, sitting outside in a café, waiting for Subject 83 to pick up a scent trail for them to follow, when she looked across the street to see Nick there, walking down the opposite sidewalk with a woman on his arm. For the briefest of instances, Helena felt a flash-burn of jealousy, which hastily sputtered out into incredulousness when she realised what was actually standing beside him.

It was one of the escaped wretches, the little runaway beasts, one of her and Philip's former playthings.

It was a female, the gleam of its Collar just visible above the coat it wore, and it clung to Nick's arm tightly. A part of Helena was disgusted, seeing one of those creatures actually dare to touch her husband, instead of being led demurely along by a chain leash. Suddenly, she wondered... Did he even know what walked beside him? That he stood beside nothing more than an animal dressed in a Human guise, like the wolf in sheepskin? Surely he had to have _some_ idea. He was stupid, but not _that_ stupid. Helena managed to pull her eyes away for a brief second and nearly leapt from her chair. The other of her former pets was walking between Stephen and some little blond tramp she didn't recognise.

Then the female creature spotted her and had gone pale. Helena allowed herself one cruel, vicious smile before ducking out of sight, not wanting to be followed or recognised.

This was simply too perfect. Standing in the shadows of the narrow side street, Helena looked down at the metal rod dangling from her wrist by its thin gold chain. Ooh, this was brilliant. Soon, they would capture their stray pets and bring them back to heel. And she could bring Nick to heel at the same time. Two dragons with one stone. She giggled a bit at her own wit, then stepped out and started walking back to the house they'd established base in.

Time to start planning.


	22. Fear

Seeing even a fleeting glimpse of the Keepers had brought an overcast of fear and anxiety to the dragons.

Caroline, whose attitude was never stellar to begin with, became downright nasty, hissing and spitting at everyone who stepped within two metres of her, perpetually in her half-and-half form. Jess and Sarah were jumpy, Matt and Ryan were defencive, Connor was skittish, and Claudia was restless. The Humans tried to play delegators when they could, but it wasn't easy going.

They were afraid. And Cutter couldn't shake the feeling that they were right to be.

None of the dragons could put names to the Keepers that'd tormented them, either from fear or ignorance, but they refused to give names. The mere mention of the word could make even Ryan of the iron composition visibly shiver. Cutter wished to be rid of the Keepers, wherever they were, but he was also anxious to be anywhere near something that could instill fear even into a Dragon soldier. Still, for the time being, there was little that could be done. None of the Humans knew the Keepers' names or faces, and since they were from the future, there were no records for them to dig into, no way of tracking them. As much as it pained him to say, the would have to wait until another day.

Anomalies waited for no man. And neither did an irritable Pachyrhinosaurus, it seemed.

* * *

Bested only by Ryan, Matt was easily the most introverted of the seven refugees. Becker had been able to coax a few dozen sentences out of him, perhaps even the ghost of a chuckle now and again, but it was Emily's company in which he felt most comfortable. Often he would be found sitting cross-legged in an unobtrusive corner of her insect room where he could observe everything, reading the illustrated field guides that listed hundreds of different insect species. Occasionally he would remark about which ones tasted good, or how best to cook them to preserve the flavour. And if not in the insect room, he was in the flower lab just four doors down, tending to the various flora that they cultivated from different time periods. Abby hardly had anything to do there anymore, as Matt did most of the work himself, except for take her own set of notes, as his were always in bloody Dragon-Script, which gave her a headache if she looked at it too long.

But only recently, though, had Emily discovered something else about the Irishman – he had quite an interest in chess. He'd uncovered the dusty plastic chess set in one of the security rooms, untouched; the soldiers much preferred poker after their shift was over. Emily had to explain the rules and such to him, but he'd taken to it like a duck to water, and between anomaly shouts, she would often sit opposite him, the board laid out between them. It was quite old, the board having seen better days. Several of the white pieces had obscenities scribbled on them in permanent marker, and one of the black knights had been decapitated, but he still found the game fascinating.

Emily sat with one ankle resting on the opposite knee, watching the Dragon as he carefully surveyed the board, calculating the next move. It'd taken a few games for him to get the hang of it, but damned if he wasn't grandmaster material once he put his mind to it. Occasionally, it was quite hilarious, to hear him curse and berate himself in dragontongue whenever she bested him. "I dunno how long dragons live, but I'm going to start getting grey over here," she remarked, a teasing grin at the corner of her mouth.

Matt huffed, giving her a sharp look over the pieces. "I know what you're doing. You're trying to distract me."

"No, I'm merely making an observation. My moth larvae will have hatched by the time you move," she replied. Since the spotting of the Keepers, she found the best thing to do to prevent them from dwelling too deeply on it was to find something for them to do. For Matt, that meant chess. And talking to him when he was trying to think.

"Distracting," he replied, pointing one finger in her direction.

"How do you guys age, anyways? I imagine slower than we do. I mean, all the books and legends say you lot live hundreds of years. That true? Or do you age like we do and are just extremely well-preserved?" she asked, genuinely curious now. Looking at them in Human form, none of them looked any older than 30, except for maybe Ryan, who had a tired, somewhat-haunted look to him that made him seem older, but even at his worst, he never looked older than 35. Despite appearances, though, the way they spoke, the way they acted, it gave them the air of being much older than they appeared.

Matt glanced up at her again. "It is quite difficult to say. Your view of time is far different than ours. To a Human, the years will pass in an instant, but for us, they are...timeless and instantaneous, all at the same time. And to make an accurate comparison to your own species isn't easily done," he replied. His blue eyes flicked up to her. "If you were a Dragon, you would barely have reached the start of adolescence." He reached out and moved his knight to E-6.

"Really? So...you lot aren't that old, I wouldn't say? In your own species," Emily mused, sitting forward to look at the board now that it was her turn.

"No, not very. But older than you? Definitely."

She smiled at his slightly smug tone. "Really? Well, that's good. You'll have plenty more time to practice." She moved her rook. "Checkmate."

Matt stared at the board incredulously for a moment even as she rose and walked around to check on her newest addition, a large _Phoneutria keyserlingi,_ the Brazilian wandering spider. They were extremely poisonous, and she had been conducting research on their venom. "It was all the bloody talking," he muttered under his breath, then began sweeping the pieces back into the box.

As Emily inspected the spider and Matt folded the chessboard, she couldn't help but to ask, "Did you have family, Matt? Before?" She had never tried to make him talk so much before, asked him so many questions. It was easier to simply allow him to speak when he so wished to, rather than prompt him to.

The Dragon's spine stiffened, all at once going so totally still that it was almost eerie. Motions carefully controlled, he placed the box on the table and turned around. Instead of looking directly at her, he instead moved over to the far wall where she kept a small part of her collection; the rest was at her flat. Dozens of insects were pinned to the inside, precisely arranged and situated, fastened with pins. "I do not know. I have no recollection of any. As far as I know, I was born in the Kennels," he replied, each word measured, detached and cool.

She didn't say anything. What was there to say to an answer like that? _Sorry you were born in a cage and slapped in irons at birth. Rotten luck, that._ Instead, she turned back around, walked up to the very edge of his comfort zone, and then, taking a deep breath to brace herself, stepped forward. She slid her arms beneath his, wrapping around his lean waist, and she hugged him very gently, her head resting in the hollow between his shoulder blades, able to feel the ridges of his wing joints through the fabric of his shirt.

* * *

Matt did not have to turn in order to know she approached. He could smell her skin, hear her soft breathing and heartbeat. He wondered what she was going to say next, but what he did not expect was for her to step forward, close enough that he could feel the warmth of her body near his back, then _put her arms around him._

His first instinct was to snarl, to pull away and twist free. How _dare_ she think to touch him, to break privilege so basely? He was _not_ some stumbling little Hatchling to be mollycoddled and cossetted, he was not anyone's _pet._ But her arms were soft around his waist, holding only loosely, and whilst she was resting her head against his back, she did so very lightly, not leaning her weight against him but still close enough to touch. Still staring down at the preserved insects beneath the glass, Matt felt a foreign sensation tentatively blooming in his chest, right beside his first heart. And, to his utter mortification, he found himself leaning back slightly, so that now _he_ was pressed into _her_.

How long had it been? How long since someone had touched him in a way that was not to cause pain but rather to give comfort, to soothe? The idea of the Keepers having followed them made him feel terrible, as if everything that he had found was about to be pulled out from beneath him, and he knew if it was, then he wouldn't be able to survive, that it would break something in him that wouldn't be fixed. But the warm pressure of her arms around his waist made the anxiety ease away, if only for a moment, and though he had no memory of it, he imagined this was what it felt like to be home. It felt surreal, almost, as delicate and fragile as a soap bubble, and his eyes slipped closed, for if he looked directly at it, it might very well burst. For all he wanted to growl and deny it, he wished that perhaps she might hold him a little tighter, maybe more often.

Damn these Humans.

* * *

Claudia had not gotten a full night's sleep since she saw her glimpse of the Keeper. It had been only the briefest of glances, but there was no mistaking that creature – she could not call it Human – for anyone else. How could she ever forget the face responsible for endless months of constant torment and pain? The past several nights, she had woken in her nest, skin slick with cold sweat, both hearts thundering in her ears. Sometimes she would even Shift in her sleep and awake in her natural skin, almost too big for the office in which she slept. Sometimes she considered using some of her herbs to make herself sleep, but she always resisted the idea.

So exhausted was she that she very nearly did not notice the small parcel in front of her door when she arose. It was merely a small plain box, nothing much special about it, except for a red silk ribbon tied around it. Curious, she lifted the box into both hands. It had some weight to it, and she could hear the soft sound of something moving inside the box when she shook it lightly. Retreating back into her room, she sat cross-legged on the floor, box in her lap, untied the ribbon, and wriggled the lid off.

What lay inside made her breath catch and her eyes prickle. Nestled carefully inside the soft lining of the box was the crystal statuette of a dragon, the same one she had seen in the shop window. It was only about as long as her hand and perhaps three inches tall, but she had never held something so beautiful and precious in all her life. It was treasure, truly treasure, and she felt like a proper Dragon again for the first time in days. Biting her lip and handling her precious treasure carefully, she placed it on a shelf above her nest, where the light could reflect on it and she could always see it.

Then, taking up the ribbon, she wound it about her hair, stood up, and walked out of the room, passing up the familiar corridors and hallways to an office that she knew well, hardly even needing to see where she was going and following the scent.

The Human she sought was sitting at his desk, leaning over an array of pages he had spread out in front of him. The rest of the office was occupied by his matrix. She had asked what its purpose was once, and apparently, it was meant to be a map of the anomalies – that was what they called Gateways – meant to predict where and when the next one would appear. She stopped outside the doorway, hands clasped behind her back, waiting to be allowed entry but not wanting to disturb him.

However, he seemed to feel her presence, because he straightened up and turned around without any provocation. "Claudia. Come in, sit down. You're up early, aren't you?" Dragons, whilst diurnal, tended to sleep more into the days at the approach of summer. Jess could not be disturbed before at least 11.30 without loss of limb, and Connor didn't rouse until noon or later. It was only just gone 9 now, so she supposed that she was up early.

"Yes, I...I had some difficulty sleeping," she replied, leaning against the edge of his desk.

Cutter glanced up at her. For the briefest moment, his eyes traced the length of red ribbon in her hair. "Bad dreams?" he asked, looking back down at his papers.

"Something of the nature." She looked down at the small fossil skull he kept on his desk as a paperweight. It was very small, only about the size of her fist, and she traced one fingertip over the ridges and dips in the stone. She wanted to thank him for what he'd done for her, for everything that he'd done, but the words refused to come forth, catching somewhere in her throat and staying there. And either way, simply saying thanks seemed terribly inadequate, all things considered. She was still mulling over her own thoughts when the harsh sound of the alarm broke the companionable silence.

His eyebrows rose as he looked at his watch. "Well, looks like I won the bet today. An anomaly before 10," he remarked, rising to his feet and pulling on his jacket.

"Might I accompany you? The others are asleep and will be for some hours yet," Claudia asked suddenly, catching his arm.

The Scotsman blinked at her in surprise, and she could tell that she had caught him off guard. Not once had any of them asked to accompany the Humans, mainly because they were afraid of what and who might just come out of the Gateway. But the idea of leaving him alone, with Keepers out and about, was stronger than any fear she might have had of the Gateway. "Uhm...I don't see why not," he replied at last, a hesitant smile coming to his face. "Let's go."

Claudia followed after him, simultaneously congratulating and cursing herself.


	23. Reasons

"Oh, poor baby. What's the matter with you, eh?" Abby cooed softly to the dinosaur. Their latest addition to the small-but-growing menagerie of stranded creatures was a juvenile female Chasmosaurus, a ceratopsian, and lately, Lila, as she'd been dubbed by someone, had been sickly, listless, refusing to eat, mostly just sleeping and groaning. Abby stood beside Lila, running a hand along the rough, leathery edge of her frill. She hated to see one of her animals sick, and that was why she'd stayed behind instead of going with Cutter on the latest anomaly shout. She'd tried to made the creatures as comfortable as possible, bringing them good food and fresh water, keeping them in enclosures big enough for them. It'd be fabulous if there was some kind of outdoor enclosure for them, but Lester wouldn't hear of that, not to mention the funding alone... So she tried as hard as she could to keep them in good spirits until they could be returned home. She'd been the same when she worked at the zoo, and it hadn't changed a tick.

As she murmured and cooed to her patient, Abby went through a mental checklist of everything that could cause Lila's illness, trying to peg down what had changed, as the behaviour was relatively new.

"You care greatly for these creatures."

Lila twitched slightly as Abby let out a short-yet-piercing shriek. "Christ, don't _do_ that!" she hissed, whipping about to face Connor whilst simultaneously patting Lila to soothe her. "You scared the life out me."

Ignoring her entirely, Connor stepped closer and knelt in the straw that covered the floor of the enclosure, putting himself close to her eye-level. His eyes weren't one colour, it seemed. They shifted from moment to moment, depending on how the light fell on him. One moment they seemed to be a dark, rich chocolate brown, then they were completely black, then they were a near-gold honey brown, then an almost-reddish shade of maroon. "Why?" he asked at last.

Abby blinked, having been musing on the current shade of his eyes – somewhere between dark honey and milk chocolate – and shook her head slightly. "Why? Why what?"

"Why do you care so much? About these creatures? What is it that makes them so important to you?" he demanded, his voice low but urgent, as if he was desperate to know. He looked at Lila's bulk, reaching out to lay one hand on the Chasmosaurus's foreleg, stretched out beside his legs. "Once the Gateway returns, she will be returned home, will she not? You will never see her again. Your company with her is only temporary, yet you put such stock in her well-being, her and all the others. I can smell it on you, your concern. What I cannot detect is the reason for it. There is nothing to gain from these creatures. Nobody else knows of their existence. They cannot be flaunted or bargained with, they have nothing of worth about them, yet still...so much is put into them, their care and treatment. _Why?"_

He hadn't taken his eyes off Lila the entire time he spoke, but Abby sensed that he was no longer talking about the creatures in the menagerie. A fine trembling had come into his hands, though he clenched them in tight fists to hide it, and she could see the pain in his eyes.

She couldn't even imagine what it had to be like for him, for the others. From the day of their birth, the Dragons were treated as property, objects to be pawned and used and manipulated however their owners wished. They were intelligent cattle, to be branded and collared, _possessed_. And then, to be yanked out of that living hell and pushed into the arms of the ARC team, people that asked their names and mourned for their hurts and tried to make it better wherever they could. Abby could distantly sympathise with that sensation. Her stepfather had been a real piece of work, and once he'd hit the bottle a bit too hard, he liked to hit other things – herself and her mum in particular. After her mum had finally gotten up the courage to move them out, Abby had been wary of other people for a good while. After being shown only the cruelty and heartlessness of some people, it was hard to believe in the kindness of others. But the Dragons had it so much worse than she had. Hell, after seeing some of the scars on them, her stepfather could almost be called saintly. Connor was just like she had been all those years ago, still caught in the mindset that nobody gave anything without wanting something in return, that you couldn't get something for nothing.

It was likely he wouldn't believe her, but he'd asked a question, and she was going to answer him. "I can't say the same for the others, but for me, there's something... magnetising about them, something wonderful and strange and terrifying. There's nothing else like them in our time. They are completely new to us, foreign and all the more intriguing for it. And to be so close to something so powerful, it's an adrenalin rush. There's a pride, too, in earning their trust, having their confidence. And if the time we spend with them is limited, it's all the more reason to make the most of that time." Abby paused slightly as Lila groaned and shifted, and she gently ran a hand down the leather-textured skin of the ceratopsian's snout, scratching lightly behind her nose horn before continuing. "I'm sure we could make plenty of money selling them to whoever, showing off to the world that we have something nobody else does, but being able to take care of them on our own, without everyone else trying to take them away, keeping it where its just us and them and the trust we have together...I think that's worth plenty more."

Connor didn't say anything, didn't look at her, merely rose to his feet and walked towards the door, leaving her behind. Abby watched his retreating back; he paused at the door of the enclosure. "There's West Indian lilac in her feed. It's toxic," he said quietly, then slipped out the door.

* * *

Ryan didn't like Humans as a species.

Oh, no doubt there might be a few decent specimens here and there, but for the most part, they were all treacherous, snaky things that stabbed each other in the back more often than not, that had an inherent fear and subsequent hatred for anything that was not like themselves. They slaughtered each other in droves, in wars over the pettiest of differences, from the colour of their skin to their beliefs in the gods. They made their own Hatchlings to carry weapons, sold each other as servants and slaves of the flesh. No, he didn't like Humans very much. But he was still bound to serve them. _Serve._ The word still rankled, still prickled sharply at the ragged remains of his pride. He was one of the greatest to have fought in the War, and now he was nothing more than glorified cannon fodder.

Or at least, he used to be.

Things had changed since their arrival through the Gateway, into this time before the War. Here, he was treated as an equal, allowed to have his own opinion, not have to ask permission, not have to bow and scrape and address Humans as 'Master' and 'Mistress' but by their names. He was still getting used to that idea, and he didn't believe that he could ever truly _trust_ a Human, after seeing what they did and could do. He still didn't like them, not even the pale-haired one, the little pet that Claudia was so fond of. But, as his _tamsirbjøre_ was like to say, "We do not have to like them, we merely have to keep them from dying."

He could do that. Ryan was quite many things, but he was, first and foremost, a warrior, a soldier. He was not a Healer, he could not fix the body. But he could break it quite efficiently. He might not like these Humans of the ARC, but he could help himself and his fellows by keeping them safe. His favourite way to do that was by moving from corridor to corridor, tracking scents, making note of anything new or out of place, keeping a well-trained eye on any strange face. Between his rounds, he would often sit in the ceiling above the room where off-duty soldiers passed spare time by playing games with cards, betting night shifts and currency.

Today, there were a half-dozen of the soldiers sitting at the table, including a new female he'd never seen before. As he crouched on the rafter, observing them, cataloguing the new female's scent and appearance for future reference, the larger male spoke in a quiet voice, not looking up from his cards but clearly addressing him, "You can come down here for a hand or two, if you'd like, instead of sitting up there all day."

He didn't know how to play cards the way Humans did, but he was wise enough to know not to anger a soldier, Master or no. Unfolding his limbs, he dropped to the floor with ease, landing lightly on the balls of his feet.

Now he could see the new female clearly, and he added her features to his profile of her. Dragons entered in military service were trained to recognise all members of their unit using all senses – he made note of the way she smelt, what she looked like, how she held herself, and once he saw her walk, he'd note her gait and listen to the rhythm of her footsteps. He did that for every soldier in the ARC, and could tell each one apart that way. This female was freckled, fair beneath the fading sunburn blistering on her nose and cheekbones. Her eyes were a clear, sharp green like bottle glass held up to sunlight, and hair the colour of copper set aflame was drawn back into a series of tight braids against her skull, hanging partway down her back. Her hands were those of a fighter, knuckles scarred and oft-broken. She had a scar on her lower lip, but it did very little to detract from her features. He could tell that she was unusually tall for a woman as well, even sitting down. "I have not seen you before," he noted.

"Not surprised. Just got back from tour," she replied; her voice was low and slightly husky. He could tell; her tan ended at her wrists, flashes of paler forearm showing whenever she moved her arms, a sign of long hours in the sun in uniform. She still smelt like sand and sun and heat, too, no false scent to detract from it. "I'm Vivacia Palmer. Just call me Palmer. Viv if you have to use my first name."

"And your rank?" Ryan asked.

"Lieutenant," she replied, unfazed. "I'm a medic, though. Came in to help out Ditz." She nodded towards the other medic sat at the table. "My specialty's in disease. Viruses, bacteria and the like. Figured I'd be needed, all the prehistoric germs that you lot get around." The others had all gone quiet, listening to the exchange. Ryan could smell the thin, slightly bitter scent of anxiety coming from each of them. This little slip was new, probably didn't know the truth of himself and his companions, and they were nervous about what would happen between the two of them.

"She's also a mean southpaw," remarked Finn, a soldier with a reputation of being somewhat slow of wits.

A husky laugh left her as she massaged her scarred knuckles. "Champion boxer of my home county, undefeated in my old unit," she replied, then looked back to Ryan. "What do you say, big guy? Wanna step in the ring sometime? None of these pansies will give it a go, and Lacey's no boxer."

"Whenever you wish," he replied smoothly, causing her eyebrows to twitch upward in surprise and the others to all look at him. "I have no qualms about striking a female, especially not if she invites me to. But do not expect me to box my weight. I'd break you."

Palmer stared at him a moment longer, then burst out laughing, a loud, surprisingly deep laugh that could be heard at the opposite end of the corridor. "I like you, big guy. I definitely like you," she chortled.

Ryan sank back in his chair, inexplicably pleased.

* * *

The beauty of an anomaly never failed to amaze Cutter. Sometimes it felt as if he could just stand there and admire them, just watch the broken bits of 'glass' shift and gleam about the soft light it exuded, like a miniature sun right there in the dark corners of the warehouse. The windows were so thick with dirt and grime, they were practically blacked out, and the only real light came from the anomaly itself. There were several soldiers posted around the perimetre of the warehouse, keeping any stray members of the public out of the way and ensuring that any creature stayed in. Cutter walked slowly around the edges of the anomaly, and he could almost feel the warmth of another time's sun coming through the rip.

"They are quite beautiful, no?" asked Claudia's voice from beside him, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. She could move quieter than anyone when she wanted to.

"Yeah, they are," he agreed, then glanced back at her. "Would you like to see the other side?" Her face paled ghostly white, and she skittered a hasty step backward, shaking her head. "No, no, it's okay. Don't be afraid. The signal is strong, it's steady, there's no danger of it closing with us on the other side. And it goes into the past, not the future. There's...well, I won't say there's _nothing_ to be afraid of. Trust me, prehistoric predators are just as bloody dangerous as modern ones are, but there isn't any _people_ to be worried about," he amended, giving her what he hoped was a comforting smile and extending one hand.

Claudia looked from the anomaly to him and back again, then hesitantly reached up and slid her hand into his own.

Smiling, he led her forward.


	24. Gifts

**A/N: so much thanks to everyone who's reviewed/favourited/followed so far. I couldn't do it without your support. And points to Primeval Angel, for spotting my Jurassic Park reference last chapter ;)**

* * *

The abrupt heat, sunlight, and humidity of the Cretaceous was almost a physical shock after the relative cool dark of the warehouse. Claudia and Cutter both blinked rapidly to adjust to the light before taking in their surroundings properly. Claudia drew in a sharp breath of surprise, hand lifting to her mouth, seeing a world untouched by mankind, no trace of pollution anywhere. He stood with his hands in pockets as she took a few steps forward, chin lifting as she inhaled deeply through her nose, scenting the air. But then she paused, going rigid. She took a step back towards him. "I...I think we should go," she murmured softly.

"Why, what's the matter?" he asked, reaching out to lay a gentle hand on her arm.

"There – " The sound of something large pushing through the undergrowth made them both freeze, and despite the fearful look on Claudia's face, Cutter inched forward, peering through the foliage. There was a small pond nearby, ringed by lush greenery, and standing at the edge, with head bowed to drink, was a juvenile theropod. It was smaller than an Allosaurus, though still at least 8 metres long, with small, wiry forearms and thick, powerfully built hind legs. Its large head bore several bony, horn-like ridges and protrusions. It had a dark greenish-grey hide, mottled with erratic patches of lighter green, dark brown-black, and cream, the perfect camouflage for hiding in sun-dappled trees.

"Albertosaurus," he remarked softly in awe.

It was the wrong thing to say.

At the sound of his voice, the creature's massive head lifted from the small pond, water streaming from its jaws, turning towards him. A growl so deep and low that it was more felt than heard rumbled out of the massive predator's chest, and then it began to take long-legged strides in his direction, jaw opening. Cutter realised that he'd just become part of the lunch menu, but before he could turn back towards the anomaly, he was being borne to the ground by a pair of clawed hand-like paws, as red as the sunrise laced with brilliant gold. Claudia crouched over him, sheltering him beneath her plated underbelly as she let out a terrible snarl at the Albertosaurus. The prehistoric predator came to a halt, obviously confused by the sudden appearance of the foreign challenger, blocking it from its prey, then it roared back, clawed feet gouging at the ground.

Claudia's back spines rattled with all the deadly intent of a rattlesnake's tail as the frill about her neck flared, wings open and trembling. The Albertosaurus was easily bigger than her, but she had the advantage of intelligence on her side. Cutter hated simply sitting idle whilst she put herself in danger, but there wasn't much else that he could do, considering that she still had him pinned to the ground, her claws digging harmlessly into the earth beside him.

The standoff broke as the Albertosaurus lunged forward, powerful legs propelling itself forward. Claudia hissed and reared up on her hind legs. A dragon's forepaws were remarkably alike to the human hand, having four fingers and an opposable thumb, able to grasp and hold things with extreme dexterity. As the creature's jaw opened wide, showing off a display of long, deadly teeth, Claudia used both her forepaws to seize hold of its head, forcing its jaw shut and twisting sharply, throwing it off-balance and making it sprawl onto its side with an impact Cutter could feel shake in the ground below him.

The Albertosaurus snarled in rage, awkwardly scratching at the earth as it got back to its feet, only to have Claudia rake her claws down its thigh, gouging four parallel slashes in the scaly flesh. It wasn't deep enough to be fatal but still debilitating. It bellowed in pain, lunging for her again, but she had the advantage of speed, able to twist her lithe body out of the way and striking again at its haunches, cutting another painful wound. The Albertosaurus must've had enough at that point as it began to make an awkward, limping retreat, chased off by a hissing and snapping she-dragon. Once it had vanished into the undergrowth, Claudia huffed out a deep breath, shook herself lightly, then turned back towards where Cutter was still sitting on the ground, watching it all in amazement. Her golden eyes narrowed, and he barely had time to think, _oh, shite_ before she was in motion heading directly towards him, one powerful stroke of her wings bringing her about to face him.

He had only just scrambled to his feet when a powerful _yank_ suddenly had him off the ground. Claudia had hooked the sharp claw of one finger through the back of his shirt, lifting him off the ground as if he was only a straw doll. "The next time that I say we should not go through a Gateway," she announced, leaning back on her haunches as she held him up at eye-level, "we will not go through a Gateway."

"Yes, ma'am," he replied meekly, in no position to argue.

She let him back down on the ground gently, lowering herself back to all fours. "Your jacket, please."

Cutter turned his back as he shrugged the jacket off, holding it out without looking, now able to feel the slight, almost indistinguishable shift in the air when she changed forms. The jacket was taken from his hands, and then Claudia's soft voice said, "You can look now." It was lucky that he'd worn one of his longer coats today, and that she was smaller than him, too; he made a mental note to start keeping a spare change of clothes in the car for them.

They were both quiet as they returned through the anomaly, which had already begun to waver and close, walking back out to where he'd parked the Hilux. As the soldiers began filing back towards their own vehicles, Cutter started the truck, careful to keep his gaze well away from her long, pale legs, which the edge of his jacket barely covered.

"I am coming with you," she announced abruptly.

"Uhm...aren't you already with me?" he asked, well and truly confused now.

The dragoness huffed, shaking her head slightly, and Cutter absently noticed that the red silk ribbon was still twined in her hair. How that had survived whilst the rest of her clothing didn't was entirely beyond him. Her voice drew his attention away from the ribbon and back to her words. "I mean, whenever another Gateway appears. I will come with you," she explained. He opened his mouth to protest, but she held up one hand to quiet him before he could. "I did not think much of it before now, but these Gateways, future or past, are dangerous. Your Human protectors are good soldiers, I will give them that, but they are not infallible."

"And you are?" he asked, unable to help himself.

Claudia's eyes shaded towards gold again. "Did I or did I not just best a prehistoric predator nearly twice my size on my own? How many of your Humans can claim they've done the same? Or use magic to heal the wounded?" she demanded, a sharp edge coming to her voice, but then her gaze softened. To his surprise, she lifted a hand to his cheek, lightly caressing. Cutter went still, surprised at the contact. She had become more at home with small, casual touches, but to his recollection, she rarely initiated it when not stressed or afraid. Her hands weren't quite soft, having slight calluses and old scars, but still warm on his cheek. "You still don't understand..." Her voice was a bare whisper.

"Understand what?"

She gave her head a small shake, then took her hand from his cheek and grasped his wrist, gently yet firmly drawing his arm to her. "I will show you, in the only way that I know how – with my actions rather than my words," she murmured. With sure fingers, she pushed his sleeve back to the shoulder, exposing his pale upper arm, and she traced a symbol on his bicep with her fingertip, whispering a string of flowing, polysyllabic Dragon-speech as she did so, the warmth of her breath brushing against his skin light as a butterfly's wings. He shivered as all the fine hairs on his body stood on end, a tingling warmth spreading through his entire shoulder, bubbling through his veins to the rest of his body. It wasn't unlike being exposed to a ray of sunshine after too long in the cold, except that it kept growing warmer and warmer, until it almost burned. As the last burbling syllable rolled off her lips, the heat dissipated, and she leant away, retracting her hands.

Cutter looked down at his arm and gasped aloud.

Circling his bicep were tattoo-like markings, made of swirling lines twisted into intricate Celtic knots, interspersed with small, letter-like runes, swirls and twists and curls. It was black in colour but had traces of deep red and gold along its edges. It was incomplete now, but had the promise of being beautiful once finished. And in the centre of it, he could see the cabalistic symbol she had traced on his skin, encircled by the pattern. "What – ?"

"My gift...to you," Claudia informed him quietly, touching the mark with gentle fingertips. Then, just like that, she sat back in the passenger seat and looked straight ahead out of the windscreen. "We should get back to the ARC." That was that. All she wrote.

Too confounded to attempt speaking again, Cutter shifted gear and started driving, all the while wondering just what the new mark on his arm meant, in more ways than one.

* * *

The she-dragon had long ago forgotten her own name, any sense of self long since destroyed, tormented and beaten out of her over nearly a century's worth of torture at the hands of the Keepers, of the vile beings which had overthrown her people, destroyed her home. Any other might have been angry, indignant, enraged by the amount of degradation she had endured, but she was not. But not out of kindness or brokenness.

She chose not to be angry because she knew that one day she would need her anger. She would need to give her purpose, to give her strength, when the time came. It was not for herself, no; the she-dragon was wise enough to know when her own fate was sealed. This was for another, more important than her, one she would give her life for a thousand times over if necessary. Even if they took her own name from her, all the torment the Keepers could inflict could never take his name from her mind. No Mother could ever forget the name of her Hatchling, her one and only son. She chose not to be angry to protect her child.

They were here to recapture those that had escaped, to drag them back into slavery and then make an example of them, her son amongst them. She could not, _would not_, allow that to happen.

And so, she drew on that anger, that never-ending wellspring of outrage that had taken up home in the place which once held her spirit, and used it to defy the rules laid down by the Keepers. She stole out of their temporary lodgings once they were all asleep, alone, to retrieve an artefact so precious, so illegal that any Human caught in ownership would have been executed, and made her way to the Human's nest-place. She knew only of one of the Humans that were sheltering her son, because her Keeper and Mistress often spoke of him. She knew where his nest-place was because of the Mistress's words.

She would be punished, perhaps killed for this, but that mattered little to her. The survival of her Hatchling was all she cared about. And so, she stole through the darkness. She would not enter another's territory without permission, even a Human's territory, and she left her gift in front of the door.

For a moment, the she-dragon stood there, staring at her gift, unfeeling of the cold wind that caressed her scarred, emaciated form, blowing wispy strands of unwashed hair in front of her eyes – the right one was sightless, having been blinded four years ago as punishment. For the first time in over a hundred years, the corners of her scarred mouth turned up in a smile.

Carefully pushing her anger back down, saving it within her once more, she made her way back to the Keepers' lodgings to await her punishment.

* * *

Another anomaly had appeared just before they left for the night, and it was nearly midnight before Cutter got home. So tired was he that he didn't noticed the unobtrusive parcel sitting on the front step until he tripped on it trying to get in the door. Cutter picked up the parcel, confused. He'd already gotten his post this morning, and they never left anything on his step, either. It was solid and had a bit of weight to it, rectangular in shape, though he couldn't hear anything rattling around when he tilted it, so he didn't think it was a box of something. There was no postmark or return address, either, just a small, folded slip of paper wedged beneath the twine tied around the parcel.

Inside, he set the parcel down on the table, opened his flick knife, and cut off the twine, unfolding the slip of paper. It was little more than a scrap of paper, torn off of some larger page, with four words written on it in flowing calligraphy: _Take care of them._ Beneath the words, a strange, cabalistic symbol.

'Take care of them'? What the hell did that mean? Somebody was taking the piss.

Or...

A cold chill ran through him, an icy finger dragging its way down his backbone. Could somebody outside of the ARC know about the dragons? The only people that possibly could were... Cutter jumped out of his chair, backing away from the parcel as if it would bite him. Or worse. Christ, if the Keepers knew where he lived... Hastily, he shook the thought away; he had to focus on the matter at hand for now. Holding the small knife carefully and not touching the parcel, he slipped the blade into the loose brown wrapping at the corner of the parcel, slicing it open down the side, then across the edge, pushing the paper back with the tip of the knife.

A book?

Completely baffled now, he set the knife aside and pulled off the rest of the wrapping, uncovering a large book, thicker than a dictionary, bound in real leather, the title seared into its cover as if burnt there with a hot iron. The title made his stomach relocate to his toes:

_The Book of Dragons._


	25. Problems

Excerpt from _The Book of Dragons:_

_**Healers (Breed):** __lightweights; these dragons are not meant for combat and usually have far more delicate bones and scales. They are gentle by nature, sometimes going to great lengths to avoid violence. Healers have the ability to sense illness and injury in living creatures, be it human, dragon, animal, or even plant, and they have a keen 'sixth sense' that allows them to find the best treatment. They are not as territorial as others, more willing to share and allow company. However, like all dragons, they are extremely protective, and though they will resent it, will not hesitate to defend their kin, home, and young with violence. Dragons of this breed are also often allowed into other Dragons' territory, as Healers will often live as nomads, passing through the lands, making well the ill and sickly, and are generally said to bring well-being to those who treat them with respect. Healer dragon eggs are opalescent in colour, paling to white at the time of hatching, and the shells are prized in medicine. Nests are created in hollowed out areas of earth, lined with moss, feathers, or anything suitably soft as Hatchlings are born with very thin, sensitive scales that thicken with age; they usually lay only two eggs at a time. These dragons raise their Hatchlings together as a pair, with equal responsibility to the nest._

* * *

By the time it was time for work in the morning, Cutter had probably drunk his weight in coffee, hadn't slept a wink, and his hand ached from making notes in one of his journals.

The Book he'd been left...he'd learned more in a night of reading than he had with all his questions over the past eight months, including things that he'd have never even considered asking. There was _everything_ in it, it seemed. The paleontologist in him was amazed and enraptured by the delicate, detailed drawings of the dragon anatomy in all different breeds, from the remarkable muscle system of a shadowrunner to the endlessly small, finite joints of the wing bones in a skydancer. There were chapters on behavioural issues, the delicacies of their language, even how to raise orphaned Hatchlings, covering everything from art to magic to culture to history. They were far from the great fire-breathing brutes portrayed in legend. They had a language that was almost as intricate and complex as Chinese characters, rituals and gods and traditions, not to mention a strict etiquette. His own notes might as well have been doodles in crayon.

He was leafing through the chapter on Dragon Magic, incredulous, when a paragraph caught his eye.

_**Rune Mark:** a form of tracking spell that any adult Dragon is capable of casting, which appears on the skin of the marked individual like a tattoo. _

One hand drifted up to touch his arm where, beneath his shirt sleeve, the beautiful tattoo-like mark lay. Awed, he looked back at the passage, reading the rest of it.

_Most Rune Marks are placed upon Hatchlings by their Mother but are also exchanged between mated pairs. The caster of the Rune Mark is able to 'sense' the one marked, locate them, the strength of the mark growing as the Bond between them strengthens as well. The mark can only be tracked by the one who initially cast the spell (see pg. 332 for Personalised Magic) and each one is unique to the individual. Most begin very small and simple, but they will spread and grow in intricacy as the Bond is strengthened. Rune Marks are a sign of implicit trust as the one marked will be connected to the dragon that cast the mark; whatever pain that is inflicted upon either the dragon or the marked being will be felt by the other, as well as other powerful emotions such as fear, anxiety, and anger. It also gives the marked protection from some lesser magics and allows for faster healing ability. The stronger the Bond becomes, the stronger these attributes will grow._

Out of sudden curiosity, he pulled his sleeve up and studied the...Rune Mark. True enough, it _had_ grown, a few new curls and spirals stretching further up his bicep. He traced a finger along one long swirling line, the implications of the new "tattoo" just starting to sink in. A sign of implicit trust, the book had said. Some days, he wasn't even sure if Claudia _liked_ him, much less _trusted_ him, and yet, she'd given him a magical mark that said she did, and greatly.

Another, more traitorous part of his mind noted that the book also said that Rune Marks were shared by mated pairs, but he hastily shoved that thought away. He was not going to think about it like that, no chance in hell. She'd probably gut him first. And if she didn't, odds were that Ryan would do it for her.

Discarding thoughts of evisceration, he looked down at his watch and cursed softly. He'd only just have time to shower and change clothes before he had to report to the ARC now. He briefly considered taking the book with him, but for some reason, a sudden protective impulse came over him. No, he wouldn't take it with him, not just yet. He marked his place with a page from his notes, then hid the book in the false bottom of the drawer of his desk, though he wasn't sure exactly who he was hiding it from.

Grabbing his keys, he headed out the door.

* * *

Claudia still could not believe her own audacity.

She had given him her Mark, something entirely unheard of. No Human had ever borne the Rune Mark of a Dragon before. Not only was it magic – highly illegal in that time – but it was also a sign that she trusted him, cared for him, and if anyone were to harm him, they would have to answer to her, as it also meant he was under her protection. And that Mark would only continue to grow and strengthen as she continued to trust him more and more, despite the lifetime of instinct and ingrained training that screamed for her not to. And despite herself, she was doubting. What if he did not wish to be Marked, didn't want to bear the sign of her magic on him? She would remove it if he asked her to, but it would hurt, in more ways than one.

She had not told anyone about what she'd done, and in a way, she was almost ashamed to, ashamed that she could so easily give a Human so rare and precious a blessing as a Rune Mark. Still, a greater part of her, that new, still forming part that Nick had helped to build with all his kindness and encouragement, protested that he had done more than enough to deserve her trust and protection, that he was willing to stand against the Keepers in order to make her and her kin safe.

She paced around her room, shoving both hands back through her hair and muttering indecisively to herself. Her fingers caught on something, and very gently, she pulled the red silk ribbon from her hair, letting it glide through her fingers. Remembering where it'd come from, she looked to the small crystal figurine on the shelf, right where she'd placed it, and that starting-to-become familiar sensation of bubbling warmth bloomed in the pit of her stomach, the corners of her mouth pulling upwards. Smiling, she carefully re-wove the ribbon into her hair, then took the figurine from the shelf and lay in the middle of her nest to admire it, purring softly in her throat.

Yes...Nick Cutter had earned her trust.

The new part of her that was her tether to him prickled with awareness, and Claudia twisted to her feet, carefully replacing her treasure before leaving the office. Nick was coming down the hallway, muttering and grumbling to himself, a scowl set in his features. Her hearts sank briefly, but when he looked up at her, the scowl melted into a smile. "Claudia, good morning."

"Good morning," she replied with a small smile in return. "Why did you look upset just now? Is there something wrong?"

"Mick bloody Harper is what's wrong," he replied, smile fading at the name.

She fell into step beside him as he walked towards his office. "Who or what is a Mick Harper?" she inquired.

He shrugged off his jacket and threw it in the general direction of his desk chair as they entered his office, flicking on the lights that illuminated the matrix in a web of gleaming silver lines and curves. "Mick Harper is a leech, a wart on the nose of humanity. He's a reporter or a journalist, whatever, for some paper. _Evening News_, I do believe. He was at an anomaly event once, the mammoth on the M25, and now he's been after us like a fly on a cow's arse, trying to get the story of the anomalies," he replied tersely. "And the scummy bastard apparently found my address somewhere and showed up at my house this morning when I was trying to leave. I almost thought I'd have to run him over, and I was sort of hoping I could." He leant over the computer on his desk for a moment, then leant back and pointed to the screen. It showed a photo of an olive-skinned man with dark hair. "So if you see this bugger anywhere near the ARC, make sure you tell the guards so they can keep his sorry carcass out."

Claudia studied the face of the man closely, a slight prickle of defenciveness tracing through her. This little Human thought to threaten her ARC, her home, with his own ambition? Perhaps if she did see him, she would not report to the guards at all and simply solve the problem herself...

"Not that I'm disagreeing with you, but killing him wouldn't quite fix the issue," Nick remarked, an amused grin on his face, and Claudia realised she must've voiced her thoughts aloud. Her ears warmed, and she ducked her head slightly. "But the next time he shows up, I'll be sure to let you do the honour of escorting him out."

The morning passed quite uneventfully, with no sign of an anomaly. Claudia prodded and cajoled Nick into doing his paperwork on time, refusing to let him work on his matrix until he did so. She sat on the edge of the table, accidentally-on-purpose playing with one of the metal rods from the matrix. He gave her a mock-baleful glare over the desk. "Fine, but I won't turn it in on time, or Lester will start expecting it to be that way all the time," he said, a playful glint in his eye.

Claudia rolled her eyes, wondering if the rod was long enough for her to rap him on the head from here, but instead the ADD began going off, loud, demanding sirens interrupting the silence.

"Oh, thank God," Nick sighed as he pushed back from the desk.

"I will make you finish when we get back," Claudia informed him primly.

* * *

"Oh, my God. It's _huge,"_ Stephen uttered in awed disbelief.

The entire team stood staring at the enormous anomaly which occupied most of the aircraft hangar, including Claudia, keeping to her promise of accompanying them on call-outs. Cutter began to step towards it, but her hand curled around his elbow. "Try it, and I'll sit on you until it closes," she warned, none-too-playfully. He knew how serious she was now, after reading the book all night – Dragons might not sleep on beds of gold and gems, but they were notoriously possessive creatures. The Mark on his arm was a declaration to all the rest of the world that he was _hers._

"I just wanted to get a reading. The magnetic field must be incredible," he replied sheepishly. She arched one eyebrow in an incredibly Spock-ish expression, both a query and a rebuke at the same time, but she released his arm, hand lowering to her side. As he was studying the readings, Claudia made a disconcerted noise from behind him, and he felt a hand curl around his arm once more. "I didn't even go towards it," he protested.

"It is not that. I can smell...something," she murmured back, voice lowered. She wasn't looking at him, either, but over towards the unobtrusive crates and boxes that were stacked up along the walls of the warehouse, probably shipments of parts and such. "There are three...no, four Humans over there. Behind the crates. Three males and a female. I believe they're watching us." Loosening her hold on his arm, she turned slightly and made a gesture towards Becker, gaining his attention; she tilted her head slightly in the direction of the crates, surreptitiously holding up four fingers.

The captain frowned, then nodded in understanding. Using silent gestures, he made for his men to block the entrance and form a loose semi-circle around the crates. Claudia slunk around, moving on silent bare feet, sliding into an easy hunter's crouch as she sidled around the crates to the edge. One pale arm shot behind them with the speed of a striking cobra. There was a loud, quite unmanly squeal, and then she was pulling out none other than Mick Harper himself, having a firm grasp on the back of his neck and quite a bit of his hair as well. With him was a cameraman laden with equipment, a man that looked like a safari guide, and a woman with a rather unpleasant demeanor about her.

"Son of a bitch," Cutter exclaimed.

Claudia looked from Harper to him, her eyes full of a quite mischievous sort of glee. "May I solve our problem now?" she asked oh-so-innocently.


	26. Experience

"You've got to be _kidding_ me. Harper, haven't we told you already to keep your bloody nose out of this? The hell are you playing at?" Nick demanded, leveling a glare at the dark-haired man. Mick tried to pull away, but Claudia maintained her firm grip on his shirt collar, and despite the fact that he was taller and heavier, he certainly wasn't getting away anytime soon. In fact, there was an almost predatory gleam in her eyes, and Nick recalled how she'd considered killing him as a solution earlier. He'd have to make sure she didn't end up killing him now, because whilst it would rid the world of one more reptile journalist, it'd probably create a whole new set of problems.

"That camera had best be off," Stephen growled lowly, levelling his coldest glare at the cameraman, who paled and hastily bobbed his head in agreement. The pistol that Stephen had shoved in his belt might've done more to convince him than the glaring, though.

The safari-guide man looked around in complete bafflement, his eyes flicking nervously from the soldiers to the weapons they carried over and over. "This is not what I signed up for. Who do I see about my expenses?" he asked.

Ignoring the man, Nick asked of Harper, "How did you know to be here?" Because there was no stroke of luck big enough to explain how a slimy journalist plus camera crew _just so happened_ to be in an aircraft hangar where the biggest anomaly they'd seen so far appeared.

Mick Harper made another bid for escape, twisting ineffectually in Claudia's grip; it was rather pointless, as they were surrounded by soldiers, but he seemed determined to try, muttering curses and grumbling. The dragoness obviously didn't find it all that amusing. She was stronger than ten Human men combined, and her aim was unerring. Releasing his jacket, she clouted him soundly on the ear. Harper sat down hard where he stood, blinking dazedly. "Answer the question. How did you know to be here when the Gateway opened?" she demanded.

Mumbling dazedly and reaching into his jacket – missing the first few times – the journalist pulled out one of their handheld short-range anomaly detectors, the little red locator light still blinking, coordinates on the bottom of the screen. Nick swore aloud as he snatched it out of the man's hands. "So _you're_ the little bastard who broke into my truck!" he snapped; the week before, he'd come out of Tesco's to find his window smashed in and the handheld gone, which'd puzzled him ever since.

"May I hit him again?" Claudia asked gleefully.

His gaze flicked from the still-dazed Harper up to her, and despite himself, a smile pulled at his mouth. "I'm starting to think that I should be worrying about your sense of humour," he remarked wryly; her cheeks flushed.

Their heads turned at a feminine screech of indignation. The long-haired woman was most certainly _not_ pleased with the treatment she was receiving, and was kicking at the soldier holding her by the arms. Becker was standing in front of her, just as unamused by her histrionics, and was holding a set of plastic zip cuffs in front of her eyes as warning. "You can't stop me from publishing this story!" Katherine, as was the woman's name, hissed out as Becker's men restrained her. She leant forward, into the captain's personal space, and spat, "This is the biggest story of the decade, and I _will_ be the one to tell it!"

Becker arched one eyebrow smoothly and addressed the rest of the team, "Would any of you lot file a report against me if I decided to gag her?"

Before anyone could answer, a ferocious animal roar shook the hangar and the anomaly began to ripple and distort.

* * *

"So...is it all true, what all is in the files about you lot?" Palmer asked as she taped her hands. She was wearing shorts and a snug vest but no more, her braids taken back in a rubber band. There wasn't a proper boxing ring in the ARC, but there was a large square of padded floors for sparring that'd work just as well. On the opposite side of their 'ring,' Ryan was standing shirtless and in loose trousers, barefoot as always. She could see the brand seared into the back of one shoulder and a number of gruesome scars that traced all across his torso, ribbons of pale tissue across a canvas of flesh. Some looked like they'd been made by teeth.

"That depends," he replied.

"On?"

"What the files say of us." He turned back towards her, his own hands already bound up and ready, though it was more for her benefit than his.

Palmer turned to face him. "Ready?" she asked, and he nodded. She shifted into a fighting stance as he did, and they began to dance around each other, not doing much more than shadow-boxing. It was just warm-up, to get the blood going. "They say you lot aren't human. That you came through an anomaly and nearly killed the professor and half the security team with bare hands."

He huffed out a breath through his nose, and when he tilted his head, the lights caught on the metal collar around his neck. It was an industrial-looking thing, a solid iron ring over a thick leather band, a set of tags dangling from the front right, bright bands of yellow on either side. There was no hinge or clasp that she could see, and she wondered how the hell it was supposed to come off. If it even came off at all. "We are not, and we did," he answered.

"What are you then?" Palmer challenged. She'd read the files, both medical and personal on all seven of the strangers, and the information contained within the pages were beyond the realm of belief. Two hearts and silver blood, twice the number of bones as a normal person, not to mention the ability to shapeshift...it truly did boggle the mind. Her first time reading it, she thought it was some kind of research for a sci-fi novel.

"I am a Dragon."

She had to take a second on that, turning the implications of that over in her mind; to give herself a moment to think it over, she started throwing proper punches now, though he always seemed to be just a hair out of her reach, sidestepping her fists and blocking every other swing with a speed that almost belied human capability. _Shite, I bet he could catch bullets, reflexes like that._ "Right, and you're just...using magic to look human at the moment?" It was hard to even say the words with a straight face.

"Correct." He started swinging at her now, and Palmer had to take steps back just to avoid getting laid out flat. As it was, he still managed to clip her a few times, and the superhuman strength bit she could certainly believe now, because that _hurt._ She used near every trick in the book she knew just to stay on her feet. Even so, she could already feel bruises forming as he backed off. If he'd been around when she was younger, she most certainly wouldn't have been the undefeated champion, that was an absolute.

"Is it true, then, that you were treated like a slave? That you had an owner before you escaped?" she asked next. That was the other unbelievable part of the files, though it still came in second compared to the whole _not-human_ thing. Slavery had been abolished for centuries, it was considered a deeply immoral sin, to enslave another sentient being, but in the future they'd taken such massive backwards strides? Just to think about it made her stomach uneasy, and in history classes, the subject of slavery had always sat the worst with her. It was hard to digest that such a terrible thing would ever become a worldwide practice again.

His face went stony and his voice left as a deep growl, "I would not suggest you continue on this line of questioning, Lieutenant Palmer."

Realising that she'd struck a nerve and wanting to coax something more than one-word answers from him for once, she decided to bite the bullet. "Here now, yes or no. It's not that hard of a question," she said sharply. His growl deepened an octave. "What's the matter? Cat got your tongue, lizard-boy?"

For the briefest second, his eyes shifted colours, from pale greenish-blue towards a burning coal-red, and his arm moved faster than her eye could track.

Palmer was on the ground before she'd even realised she'd been hit, stars exploding in front of her eyes. Her ears were ringing, the side of her face was throbbing in time with her heartbeat, and the taste of blood was on her tongue. Flopping over onto her back as the stars faded, she saw Ryan's figure looming over her, seeming a thousand miles tall with her prone. The lights behind his head shone on his pale hair, but he definitely didn't look like any angel. "So...big guy's got a soft spot," she said, running her tongue over her teeth to see if any of them had come loose.

"I had been reassigned to a new Mistress and was temporarily lodged in the Kennels whilst the paperwork was being sorted. She had been my Mistress before, and had requested my service again. I do not..." He paused, seemed to reconsider his words, then said, "I do not take recalling my former Mistress very fondly." He leant down slightly, extending a hand.

"Fair enough." She grasped his hand, and bit back a groan as the world lurched. She wavered a little on her feet; squirrelly bloke had one hell of a swing. "But next time, just say so instead of knocking me silly."

He dipped his chin. "Agreed."

"Let's, erm, let's call that a day," she said, wiping a hand across her mouth and leaving a bright crimson smear across the back of her glove.

The corners of his mouth twitched. "Agreed."

As they sat down on the benches, taking off their gloves and changing back into uniform, a thought occurred to her. It was something that'd been niggling at the corner of her mind for a while now. "Does it bother you? That I'm taller?" Palmer asked out of curiosity. She'd noticed that a lot in the service, that the lads always tried to prove they had the bigger balls, as if their very masculinity was challenged by the fact she stood a good six inches over nearly every man. They always stood up straighter, puffed up some, and tried not to look at her directly because they'd have to look up. But Ryan didn't. It wasn't that he was ignoring the fact, it was that he genuinely seemed not to notice it at all.

"No," he answered. "In fact, I find it...refreshing."

Okay, there was one she hadn't heard before. "Refreshing how?"

Ryan pulled a plain grey t-shirt down over his head, covering up the array of scars that crisscrossed his frame. Now that he'd spoken of his former 'Mistress,' Palmer had a rather grisly idea as to where some of them came from. "In my true form, I fall into the heavyweight category, which means that I am considerably larger than my fellows. I am not used to feeling small. To have to look up at another in order to meet their eye is a novel experience."

Palmer smirked as she pulled two water bottles out of the mini-fridge, passing one to him; had she been off-duty, she'd have gone for the beers instead. "Well, to have someone else knock me on my arse with one punch is a novel experience for me. To novel experiences," she said, tilting her bottle to him.

The pale-haired Dragon stared at the bottle in his hand for a moment, an unreadable expression on his face, but then he seemed to pull out of it and nodded in return. "To novel experiences."

* * *

"Was there any sign of the cameraman or the safari bloke?" Nick asked softly, nursing a sprained wrist as the anomaly flickered and sputtered, rapidly losing life.

"Only that," Claudia replied, nodding towards the twisted, mangled bits of metal that'd once been a film camera; parts of it were glistening wetly with blood. She carefully grasped his hand, eased back his sleeve, and trailed her fingers across his injured wrist, murmuring softly in dragontongue. A prickling heat bloomed beneath his skin so sharply that he hissed, but when it faded, it took most of the pain with it. She shook her head. "Why did they not listen to us, Nick? Why did they not leave it be? They might have lived had they not..." She bit her lower lip and gave her head another shake.

"I know," he murmured back, laying his hand over hers.

An adult giganotosaurus had made an appearance through the anomaly, the T-rex's bigger, meaner cousin, and rather than listen to the order to clear the way and stay well away from the apex predator, the damn cameraman had decided to try filming, with the safari man acting as some kind of documentary narrator. Except that it wasn't BBC Earth, and they'd been dragged back through the anomaly screaming. Claudia, Becker, and a handful of soldiers made the run through in an attempt at rescue. It hadn't done a lick of good, either. The giganotosaurus had already left with its warm-blooded meal, and a pack of juvenile raptors were stalking about looking for any scraps. A volley of rounds had scared the raptors off long enough for them to get back through the anomaly as it sputtered out.

Mick Harper and Katherine were both sitting a few metres away, silent for a change, with two soldiers standing guard beside them. They'd both been in restraints when the giganotosaurus appeared, or Nick would bet they'd have run towards the damned thing too. God, he wanted to hate them, the idiots, but still, it was hard to do so when they hadn't _known,_ hadn't realised that the word 'anomaly' was very well synonymous with 'death.' They were just stupid, greedy, _normal_ people wanting fame and notoriety, unknowingly biting off far more than they could chew.

Claudia was gazing at them as well, her eyes shifting from soft brown to shining gold, her claws slowly extending from her fingernails. Releasing Nick's wrist, she picked up the bloodied remnants of the camera and approached the duo. Journalist and editor looked up in unison at her. "Here is your proof," she said to Katharine, dropping the twisted metal thing at the woman's feet; Katharine yanked her feet back as if it was a live serpent about to bite. Mick couldn't look at the camera, or at Claudia; he stared at the floor. "Your avarice has cost two people their lives."

"That wasn't – " the pale-haired woman began to protest.

"Shut up," Claudia said softly but not unkindly; Katharine shut up. "You wanted to make a story out of something you did not understand. You were warned to stay away from this, and you chose not to, too blinded by your own covetousness to see the danger laid before you. Here is the result of your fault." She gestured with a hand to the bloodstained camera. "Perhaps now, with the hand of experience to temper your greed, you will learn."

Turning away before either of them could reply, she returned to Nick and slid her arm through his. Her cheek rested against his shoulder. "I wish to go home now," she murmured quietly.

Nick agreed.


	27. Ritual

Excerpt from_ The Book of Dragons:_

_**Rituals and Rites:** despite the massive amount of literature and lore which portrays the Dragon species as one of crude, violent bloodthirstiness acting on instinct, the reality is that the Dragon culture is highly evolved and civilised. A major portion of this culture is centred around the rituals and ceremonies which all breeds of Dragon observe and uphold. There are some which are specialized to a certain breed, such as the firebreathers' Rite of Forge Diving, in which adolescents fly into the heart of massive forest fires and retrieve burning coals for their home hearth as a rite of passage, or the skydancers' Y'Iindar-Voshu Ceremony, in which one first reaches the age as to participate in the yearly courtship aerial dance. However, some are held as universal, such as Mating Rites (pg. 384). Some of these ceremonies are merely a matter of courtesy or in the sake of tradition, however some hold vital importance and significant meaning. It is highly advisable that any outsider invited to witness a Dragon Rite, a rare allowance, ask what behaviours are to be observed throughout, as to disturb a Ritual can be taken as personal offence. _

* * *

Jess had never thought highly of Human Beings before.

She was the youngest of her companions, young enough that she had no recollection of the War at all. She had been only a Hatchling when the Fall of Dragonkind began, barely able to see, with baby webbing still on her wings. By the time she was of an age to understand what the War was, what it meant for her and her kind, she was in the Kennels with her Mother, already fitted with her Collar. Her memories of freedom were vague, distant, but she still had them. She grew to loathe the Human race, though it had only been a vague anger at first, drawn from her Mother's own fury, a childish knowledge that if her parent was angry at something, then she ought to be angry at it as well.

But it'd become a very focused anger when she'd been pulled away from her Mother and had a white-hot iron pressed into her shoulder until all she could smell was her own flesh burning. After that, with her first Mistress, with her first punishment by the Collar, with her first broken privilege at her Master's hand, Jess learnt what it meant to hate.

Hate. Humans used the word so casually, about food, music, jobs, menial things that made her want to rip the tongues from their mouths. That was not hate. It was a dislike. A strong dislike, perhaps, but it was still merely dislike. To hate was something else entirely. To hate was to bite one's own tongue until one's mouth was full of blood to restrain from tearing a Human's head from their shoulders. To have one's stomach full of such needles and acid that it made one sick. To have to bite into one's own flesh to satisfy the need to cause hurt in retribution.

Even now, after months of living here inside the ARC, surrounded by Humans that treated them with nothing but respect and kindness, that long-nurtured hatred still festered in her hearts. Some days, she would almost forget that it was there, until she was reminded of it again, by the smallest of things. And when it happened, she would take her refuge not in her nest but in the room which housed the not-Keepers' weapons, their _armoury._ To be surrounded by instruments that caused pain and death brought a measure of relief, though she knew it probably wasn't a healthy sort.

Today, most of the not-Keepers were gone, out in response to one of the Gateways. She was alone as she lay across the top of a large steel cage which held the more powerful weapons, including explosives, the ceiling only a scant few inches above her back. Jess curled her tail around one of the supports, hooking her fingers through the wire mesh, liking the cold press of steel against her bare flesh. Unlike other races, she rather preferred the cold, found it more relaxing than heat, and often it helped her to sleep. Her eyes closed, but she did not drowse.

The door opened, but Jess didn't bother to open her eyes. She knew already who it was – the Human male with the unmoving hair, Becker; she knew him both by scent and by the rhythm of his stride. He came in muttering curses of all sorts under his breath. She opened one eye lazily. He was taking off the armour which protected his upper body, then began unloading the steel teeth from his weapon. He hadn't noticed her presence, or he would have said something to her, as he always did. His back was to her. A rather devilish thought formed at the fringes of her mind, and her lips curved up in a smile.

Waiting until his weapon was empty of teeth, she called down, "For a Keeper, your situational awareness is lacking."

"Fucking hell!" He whirled about so quickly he off-balanced and had to catch himself on the edge of the table, knocking his weapon to the floor. "Jesus H. _Christ,_ don't do that!" Jess laughed aloud, something she'd rarely done for years as he leant down to retrieve his weapon. "You're lucky this thing wasn't loaded, or one of us might have a hole full of buckshot," he remarked as he set the weapon back down on the table.

"That is why I waited until you had finished unloading it," she remarked, resting her chin on one forearm, folded on the edge of the cage.

Becker turned to glare half-heartedly up at her. "Very funny. What are you doing up there, anyways?" he asked, turning slightly so that he could see her in his peripheral vision.

"Thinking."

"About?" He began to disassemble the weapon, taking out supplies with which to clean the pieces. It was a ritual of his. This not-Keeper captain had many rituals when it came to his weapons. At least once during the day he would come into the room to take inventory of them all, make sure they were all there and know who had the ones that were absent. He often cleaned them and used them in the practice range to ensure they were in prime condition. Jess hated the gods-be-damned things, the awful weapons that spat killing teeth, but she did, at least, admire his devotion to keeping the items of his Craft in good condition.

"Hatred. And Humans."

His hands paused slightly before resuming their task. "Well, that's certainly a wise thing to be thinking about in a room full of military-grade firearms, sitting on a cage which holds C-4, landmines, and short-range rocket launchers," he remarked.

"Indeed."

He gave her another glance and shook his head. "I swear, you lot worry me at times."

Jess let out another burbling little laugh as she rolled over and settled her chin in her hands, tail curling back and forth. "Perhaps you are not so dull as you appear, then." She inhaled slowly then frowned. There was a new scent clinging to him, beneath the musk and sweat and masculinity. "Why do you smell of blood?"

Again, his hands paused, for longer this time. "Two civilians were killed at the incursion today," he replied in a softer tone of voice. "They weren't supposed to be there at all, but...we should've protected them."

A long, slow exhale escaped her lips, turning back over onto her side so that she might observe him. It was in moments such as these that she nearly forgot the hatred that lingered within her, in the moments that lasted forever and a heartbeat, with only the softness of breath and the clinking of metal, knowing that he cared so deeply for those killed, how it made him hurt. Jess slid down off the top of the cage, landing on bare feet without a hint of noise and stepping around him, sat on an empty stool beside him. "Would you like to be drunk?" she asked.

The not-Keeper Human fixed her with a _look._ "Beg pardon?"

"I asked, would you like to be drunk? I cannot stand the taste of Human alcohol, but I have found a way to ferment a decent amount of strawberry cordial." It was a sweet, fizzy drink her kind often had, only mildly intoxicating to them, though it might have him three sheets to the wind much faster. "I am to understand that it is a Human ritual, after a particularly upsetting or traumatic event, to imbibe enough alcohol so as to be drunk, especially of males."

Becker stared at her for a long moment, something unreadable moving in his eyes, but then he set down the pieces of his weapon and braced both hands on the table in front of him. "Well, Miss Jess, I am currently on duty, so imbibing alcohol is out of the question at the moment. But tonight, after my shift ends, I would greatly desire to be drunk."

She nodded, inwardly preening. She'd guessed correctly about the Human ritual; now, she wondered, how much cordial would it take for him to be completely smashed, as Ryan was like to say. She had a feeling that it would take a good bit. Perhaps she could challenge him to a contest. A futile one, as she would win, but she had a feeling that his pride would not let him admit defeat very easily. She would have him very drunk in the course of this ritual.

* * *

Abby could smell smoke.

"Connor, please tell me you're not setting Lester's paperwork on fire again," she said urgently as she crossed up the corridor to where Connor's bedroom/office was. He _had_ done that, too, after Lester had decided not to let them go outside for two weeks – rounded up all of the bureaucrat's carefully filed, labeled, and organized paperwork and set it all flaming with one puff of breath because apparently, one of a fire-breathing dragon's favourite things to have in their tea was fresh, warm ashes. Needless to say, Lester was _not_ happy. In fact, he'd damn near turned puce.

There was more smoke filtering from the partially open door, which she waved away with a cough. Firebreathers weren't bothered by smoke at all, and actually rather enjoyed it. "No, I'm not," he replied from somewhere inside the hazy office. "I've been given newspapers for my tea now, even though they don't have the same taste." He appeared a moment later, pulling the door the rest of the way open. "I was attempting to weave an article of clothing with magic."

Grateful for the ventilation system in the ARC, Abby waved away the rapidly dissipating smoke to reveal a piece of charred material spread across the desktop. It looked like one of Danny's shirts; the copper wouldn't be happy about that. "And you're doing this _because...?"_

"So that way, when we Shift forms, our clothes are not constantly ruined. I happen to like my clothes," Connor replied, smoothing gloved hands down the front of his waistcoat. Of all the Dragons, he had the most unusual sense of style. Today he'd gone with a black fedora, Star Wars t-shirt, red undershirt, red scarf, silver-on-black pinstriped waistcoat, stripy red trousers, black Converses, and black fingerless gloves. He looked like a post-grunge Sam Spade. Usually he'd wear that with one of his many coats, or perhaps two of them if he was having a bad day.

"Right. So...how's that going for you?" Abby asked.

Connor paused to scratch at his scruffy beard, looking around the office; it was then that she noticed there were four or five other pieces of burnt clothing lying heaped in the corner. "I'm getting there," he said at last.

"Somehow, I don't believe you," she replied.

He grumbled under his breath as he swatted the piece of smoldering fabric into the heap and pulled out another of Danny's shirts. Abby couldn't help but smile as she walked out of the office, grateful that he wasn't burning any more paperwork; Lester might have very well made himself a nice new dragon-skin throw rug if Connor had. Though, if he kept using Danny's clothes, then the copper might have himself a new dragon-skin motorcycle jacket before too long.

* * *

**A/N: two chapters in a day, to make up for my delay in posting and for Sandy Lee Potts, who inquired about more Becker/Jess interactions. :)**


	28. Treasure

Excerpt from _The Book of Dragons:_

_**Dragons and Treasure:** the legends and prejudices that surround dragons and treasure are like many other myths throughout time – mostly wild exaggeration and fabrication but with grains of truth still embedded in their base. Dragons do not sleep upon beds of gold and gems or burn towns to kindling when a bejeweled cup is stolen, however, Dragons are deeply possessive by nature and what they do claim as their own is fiercely guarded and protected. Treasure is defined in two ways, as accumulated wealth in the form of money, precious metals, jewels, etc., but also as any person or item that is enormously valued or cherished. Whilst they are not averse to shiny objects, what is considered treasure varies depending upon the individual asked. Some value art, paintings and sculpture, but others might care more for literature, poetry and novels. A Mother dragoness may claim her offspring as her treasure. One might value their mate as their treasure. No matter who or what a Dragon's "treasure" may be, theirs is a fierce and jealous love, and if should it be damaged or taken by force, then those responsible may expect for the full fury of a Dragon in Hoarding Instinct (pg. 496) to arrive swiftly._

* * *

Done. Abby was at last, finally, completely _done_ with all her reports. Rubbing at her weary, gritty eyes, she stood up and stretched, hearing her back pop after being in her office chair for the past several hours. She'd gotten behind on the paperwork in the past few weeks, considering everything that'd happened to them, but Lester had issued an ARC-wide memo that either the response team turned in their reports or they wouldn't be going out on the next alert at all. Well, the suited bugger could now kiss her pert arse, because she was finished and going home to feed her lizards and pet Rex before turning in.

Yawning, she pulled on her jacket and walked down the corridor towards the other office that was now Connor's room to bid him goodnight as she always did. They'd all taken up their own separate places inside the ARC, like it was their home now. Abby didn't like the idea of them living in what was essentially a giant office building – a dinosaur-catching office, but still an office – but they were comfortable, it seemed, being there. Connor, more than the others, had made the room his own. There were writings and drawings tacked up on the walls, shiny bits and bobs carefully arranged where they could sparkle brightly, books stacked up in a nest of literature, and all his clothes were left around. It looked like a mess, but it wasn't. In fact, everything had its own careful place. Dragons were peculiar like that, preferring to have their belongings spread around their nests, able to be admired, the scent of themselves permeating the room. The door was always left at least partially open – they hated being closed in at all, it was too reminiscent to Cages. "Connor? Hey, Conn? I'm leaving, mate."

Abby nudged the door open a little more, tilting her head to peek inside. She could see Connor curled up atop the desk like a cat; he slept in the oddest bloody places. His wings covered him like a blanket, and his tail was curled in close to his body, the very end twitching slightly. It didn't seem at all odd at first, until Connor whimpered, a low, pained noise from the depth of his throat. His limbs twitched slightly, like a dog in slumber, except that he was clutching in closely to himself, curling up even smaller, like he was trying to become invisible.

"Connor? Oi, Connor!" Abby called, louder now, anxious. A part of her wanted to go in and rouse him, but the other part told her that stepping in without invitation would only lead to bigger problems. Then Connor cried out loudly, hands reaching up to claw at his Collar, nails scratching at his own skin and drawing forth beads of silvery blood, yet he did not wake. _Bugger it._

She hastily stepped across the office, though taking care not to step on anything. "Connor, wake up," she insisted, slightly louder. Deciding not to touch the Dragon directly, she instead lightly rapped her knuckles against the side of the desk, the sound echoing oddly in the empty drawers, hoping the vibration and the noise would rouse him.

It worked.

And just as quickly, Abby wished that it hadn't.

* * *

"Right, then, so...what exactly is this stuff again?" Becker asked as Jess took out what looked like a wine bottle, except it had no label, and gave it a vigorous shake before removing the cork with her teeth. There were two empty glasses on the table between them, one for her and one for himself. She had made the invitation to get drunk with him after his shift ended – something he still couldn't believe entirely, that she'd asked if he'd like to get _drunk,_ of all things – and he'd changed into his civvies, walked down to the empty break room after near everyone had left, and found her there waiting for him. Now he was wondering whether or not this was just some clever way of poisoning him.

"Strawberry cordial," she replied, sniffing the contents and apparently deciding it was acceptable. "It is a kind of drink that my kind create by extracting the juice from fruit and plants and then fermenting it. I suppose it is comparable to your Human wine." Taking the glasses towards her, she poured a measure of the 'cordial' in both, sliding one back across the table to him.

Becker picked up the glass and studied the contents dubiously. It didn't _look_ all that conspicuous, but then again, in human form, neither did Jess. It was a clear pinkish-red colour, like watermelon, it fizzed like soda pop might, and it did indeed smell of strawberries, but he still wasn't entirely confident about drinking this...Dragon wine, as she'd drawn the parallel. Still, she was looking across the table at him expectantly, holding her own glass in hand. Deciding to bite the bullet and go for it, he took a tentative sip.

Oh. Oh, my.

It did indeed taste like strawberries, the absolute ripest, most delicious strawberries he'd ever tasted in all his life, and he could feel it fizz and tickle all the way down to his stomach, where a most pleasant, bubbling warmth pooled and spread through his torso. He blinked rapidly, sitting back in his chair and sliding down a little in his seat. He took another drink, more of it this time, and his whole body relaxed, the lovely warmth curling lazily through his limbs, a soft buzzing hum taking up residence in the back of his skull. "Quality stuff," he said, hiccupping a little.

"Thank you," she replied courteously, watching him closely.

He swallowed down another mouthful, and _ooh,_ that was even better than the first taste."Hey, when'd you get horns?" Becker slurred a little, noticing for the first time that when he looked back up at her, she no longer looked fully human. She'd slipped into that strange half-and-half stage, where her body was still human, but her horns, tail, and wings were visible, which in his most humble opinion, made her look like one of those old medieval drawings of a succubus.

Jess cocked her head. "I have not altered my glamour. Why do you say that?"

"Yes, you did, 'cause I can see your tail. The scaly one, not your bum, and your wings, too, and your scales are a very pretty colour blue, d'you know that?"

Well, this was certainly an interesting side-effect. Apparently if they ingested enough cordial, a Human could see through glamours to a degree. Fascinating. She would have to mention it to Connor; he was a Crafter of Magic, he was always enraptured by such things. She looked across the table at the Human man, who was now studying his own hands with avid fascination, as if he'd never seen them before. If cordial alone affected him like this, then she wondered what would happen if she ever gave him a taste of the _vischec'gar_ she'd made...

She refilled his glass and slid it across the table to him.

"Salud!" he giggled.

Jess felt a sharp prickle of magic drag up her spine a moment before a terrible snarling roar, barely muffled by the walls and floors between them, broke the silence.

Becker fell out of his chair, sputtering, "The fuck was that?" He tried to rise, staggered, and sat down heavily. "Shite."

Another of the not-Keepers ran into the room, wide-eyed and pale. "Boss! Boss, the kid, Connor, he's completely lost it! He's got Maitland!" he blurted before running off, no doubt to collect others.

Abruptly regretting the decision to begin this ritual, Jess placed one hand firm on the captain's shoulder as he attempted to rise once more. "Be still. You're in no condition to do anything now, Master. Might I borrow your...mobile?" she asked, pausing a moment to remember what the little device they used to speak to each other was called.

He pulled the small device from his pocket and handed it to her. "The one time I decide to get pissed, an' _this_ happens," he muttered bad-temperedly. Grasping the edge of the table, he tried to rise but succeeded only in tripping on his own feet and falling over once more.

"I would not advise standing yet, Master."

"Good idea."

* * *

Nick sat back against his headboard, _The Book of Dragons_ propped open on his knees. He had at last managed to get home, after being stuck filling out paperwork for hours on end. He'd have chucked it all in the bin if not for Lester threatening to keep him in on the next anomaly alert. And because Claudia had asked him to. But he still had to do a little reading before he could sleep. He'd learnt so much about the draconian race from this book it was almost unbelievable. He had almost filled an entire notebook with notes already.

A vague part of him knew that he should probably take the book into the ARC, show the others, but he still didn't want to. He wasn't even sure _why_ he didn't want to, just that he didn't. It had been given to him, after all.

Nick paused as he turned the page and saw the heading at the top of the next page – Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Other Psychological Trauma. Pulling his notebook closer, he uncapped his pen and began reading. He'd gotten no further than the first paragraph when his mobile began ringing insistently. _You've got to be kidding me._ He considered ignoring it under the pretense of being asleep – it _was_ nearly one in the morning – but a tightness in his chest and a prickling at the back of his neck convinced him otherwise. He picked up the mobile, saw it was Becker's number, and answered it. "Somebody better be dead or dying." Pleasantries stopped at midnight.

It wasn't the captain speaking at all, but Jess. _"There is something wrong with Connor. Master Lester is demanding your presence. Captain Becker is currently...incapable," _she informed him in her deceptively calm voice; in the background, he heard a snarling roar that was all-too familiar. _"Claudia is attempting to speak to him now, but it is not working very well."_

"I'm on my way."

* * *

Nick probably looked a complete mess as he ran into the ARC, having thrown on whatever clothes were at hand, namely a rumpled pair of jeans and an old t-shirt, wearing the scuffed and dirty trainers he only ever wore when he was doing yardwork. He hadn't brushed his hair, either, and knew from experience it'd be standing up all over. None of that mattered at the moment, as there was a definite sense of fear in the air as he hastened up to the office he knew Connor had made into his room.

Claudia was there, and as soon as he came 'round the corner, she grabbed him firmly by the arm, pulling him closer. "Abby is in there, and she is unharmed, but Connor is...unresponsive at the moment," she informed him quietly.

And wasn't that the truth. Connor had Shifted forms completely, nearly too big for the room, his undulating black form pressed against the wall, all his back spines standing erect and rattling against each other dangerously. He could only open one wing, the other caught against the wall, and even so, he could only partially unfurl the leathery appendage, using it to shield his nest from their sight. They could only just see Abby from where they stood, caged between the Dragon's forelegs, serrated black talons curled around her. Her eyes were wide and terrified, but she was smart enough not to struggle or scream.

Nick hadn't memorized everything in the book, but from what he could tell, Connor had gone into Hoarding Instinct, a state of hyper-defenciveness that Dragons experienced when extraordinarily stressed or frightened. They would gather all their treasures and belongings around them in their nest, as if being surrounded by their possessions soothed them, and would very well kill any creature that tried to take step into their territory or threaten their 'treasures,' even in the slightest way. And Connor was trembling with barely contained energy, his breath so hot it scorched the wall beside his head. When he snorted, sparks leapt from his mouth. "Everyone stay very well away from him. Nobody raise their voices or move too quickly. I don't think he's entirely in his right mind at the moment, so nobody try to be the hero," he said in a low murmur, not looking directly in the Dragon's face. "Abby, you alright?"

"F-fine, Professor, just – " She swallowed hard as Connor tightened his arms around her, claws pressing ever-so-lightly into her skin. " – indisposed at the moment."

"Alright, good. I want you to try to calm down, okay? Connor won't hurt you, he thinks he's protecting you, and so long as you're afraid, he's going to think you're being threatened. Relax. It's alright," he soothed, then tilted his head slightly to address whoever was beside him but didn't dare turn his head away from the Dragon in front of him. He was fairly certain it was Lyle. "Where's Stephen? Someone go get him. _Walk,_ mind you, and slowly."

"Stephen?" Lyle repeated. "Should I tell him to get the tranquiliser gun?"

_"No._ Other than Abby, Stephen is the only person here that Connor actually likes and might listen to, now go get him," Nick hissed back, noticing how Connor snarled at the mention of a gun but not noticing the sideways look Claudia shot him.

As Lyle carefully shuffled away, Nick addressed the others. "Alright, everyone back off. Just get on. You're not making this any better by being here. You're likely just making it worse. Connor doesn't trust any of us at the moment, soldiers least of all, so just...clear out, give some space." There were illustrations in the Book, and one had been of the destruction a Dragon in Hoarding Instinct had wrought. It wasn't something he'd like to see repeated in any circumstance.

Claudia attempted reasoning with the irate Dragon once more, speaking in low, insistent dragontongue, but Nick got the feeling that Connor wasn't up for listening to anyone at the moment. Not a moment later, Lyle returned with Stephen in tow, the tracker looking baffled and worried. "What's happened? What – ?"

Stephen grunted as a versatile tail curled tightly around his midsection, pulling him right off his feet into the office, and before he even realised it, he was right next to Abby, being encircled by Connor's forelegs. The Dragon hissed ferociously, showing all his deadly teeth, tiny flames dancing in the corners of his mouth, and then he curled his entire serpentine length around the pair, using his wing to hide them from view, tail sweeping the rest of his possessions in closer. He was speaking in feverish Dragontongue, more to himself than them, snuggling them close to his chest like human-sized teddies. Neither Stephen nor Abby understood a word of it, but to them, it sounded like one word, or a few words maybe, repeated over and over.

"Connor? Conn, can you hear me, mate?" Stephen asked softly, resting one hand on the overlapping plated scales of Connor's chest, surprised to find that instead of their usual cool temperature, they were hot to the touch, like touching the bonnet of a running vehicle.

The Dragon opened one burning golden eye to look at them, his head nearly level with theirs. His pupils were like those of a cat, reacting to every slight change in the light, a slash of black in the luminous gold. Carefully, he loosened his grip and relaxed his forearms, allowing them room to move. He kept up his feverish muttering until Abby tentatively came up to press one hand to his scales, on the side of his neck just behind his jaw. "Are you alright? What happened?" she murmured.

He didn't answer her, as if he was beyond hearing anyone at the moment, but she could hear Nick speaking from the doorway. "Abby, Stephen, listen. There's not much we can do at the moment. We'll just have to wait it out, he'll come out of it in a few hours, alright? Think you'll be alright?"

"Uhm...yeah, I imagine so," Stephen replied after a moment, though the confidence might've been lacking from his tone.

"Don't worry, he'll not hurt you. He's only protecting what he thinks is his at the moment," Nick reassured, though Stephen didn't feel all that encouraged. "We're all just making him nervous, so we're going to leave, but we'll not go far."

_Right. Great. Don't worry, we'll scream if he decides to eat us and we need help,_ Stephen thought dryly, but he didn't dare say it aloud.

Once the others had left as promised, Connor curled himself into a snug ball of angles and edges, cradling them in his forearms against his chest; he was purring again, a deep, grating rumbling noise that made the light fixture shiver. Stephen and Abby were at a loss of what to do, other than sit down as comfortably as they could, snuggled in the crooks of his elbows, careful to avoid his talons. After a moment, the tracker glanced across at her and asked, "So, did you manage to finish your paperwork too?"

* * *

As Nick headed down the corridor towards his own office, deciding to kip on the sofa and attempt at sleep once more, he didn't hear Claudia come up behind him until she moved around and barred his path with one arm. He staggered back a step to avoid running into her. "What?" he asked.

Claudia was giving him a surprisingly wary look, narrow-eyed and cautious. "I nor any of my fellows have told you of Hoarding Instinct. Or treasures," she said in a deceptively cool voice. "And yet you knew what was happening to Connor and how to best absolve it. So, tell me, how is it that you came to learn so much of our people? And I would not advise lying to me, Professor. I'll know it if you do."

_Bugger._


	29. Knowledge

Stephen had fallen asleep somehow, and between one thing and the next, when he woke up, Connor was kneeling beside him in human guise but for the odd spot of scales and the tail that was draped possessively over Stephen's hip, stroking Abby's hair with a hand. She was asleep too, head and shoulders pillowed in the dragon's lap.

"Connor. Mate, you back with us?" he asked, voice raspy from sleep as he jacked himself up on one elbow.

"Yes," the other male replied in a low murmur.

"What, erm...what happened?" Stephen asked.

Connor looked away sharply, jaw tight, eyes shifting rapidly from black to gold and back again, tail flicking. "I...was dreaming," he said at last, his words stiff. "Of something long past. I was...unnerved."

There was about a dozen pages of subtext written in there somewhere, full of shadows and darker things Stephen would much rather not contemplate. He sat up slowly, pulling his legs under him and looking around the office. The carefully arranged bedding had been scattered, as had most of Connor's clothes and the various books he'd collected, shoved aside and knocked away by the size of his natural form. There was a long black mark along the wall where his hot breath had scorched the plaster, and the scent of smoke still lingered. "Are you...better now?" Stephen asked hesitantly. He wouldn't ask if Connor was alright. He doubted that any of the dragons could ever be fully 'alright' after everything, but they could be better.

The dark-haired lad stared at the wall hard for a moment, eyes still shifting colours like a nervous tic, before slowly bleeding from gold to black and staying there. "I believe so," he murmured.

Their voices had woken Abby, and the moment she saw Connor sitting above her, she sat up and enveloped him in a hug. Of all the reactions, Stephen could bet _that_ was one Connor had least expected. The look of surprise on his face was almost comical. When she lowered her arms again, she sat back on her feet like Stephen was, not asking questions but simply waiting. There was a world of understanding in that silence, a shared knowledge of each other that went beyond words.

Connor stared at them both, his eyes shifting gradually from Stephen to Abby and back again. His face was unreadable; neither could tell just what was going on inside his mind when he got that look about him. Finally, he seemed to come to a decision, drawing himself up. Connor scooted forward until his knees touched theirs, grasped Stephen's right wrist and Abby's left, pulled their arms towards him, and placed one hand over their wrists, one finger tracing a patterns on their skin and murmuring in low, burbling dragontongue. Both Humans gasped softly as a sensation of heat washed over them, spilling up their arms. The scent of burning cedar and ash filled the air, mingling with a sweeter scent, like lily buds about to burst in bloom and fresh spring rain, tingling as it spread and curled tightly around their wrists like an invisible serpent of sensation and power. When the sensation faded away, there were dark tattoos on their wrists, curling around their wrists in the same place where that unseen power had pressed against their skin.

Stephen stared down at his wrist in utter shock, mouth working as he tried and failed to come up with the words to say. Beside him, Abby was similarly speechless, gaping at her marked wrist like it was something foreign that'd grown on the end of her arm. Connor made a small gesture with one hand and said something in dragontongue, then rose to his feet gracefully and began straightening out the chaos of his room, righting the desk and gathering up his books. The request to be alone was unspoken, as it always was, but still there.

The tracker got his feet under him and gave Abby a hand up, walking out of the office and quietly pulling the door shut after them. For a moment, they stood there staring at each other, wondering what had just transgressed in the other room and what it meant. They both studied the new tattoos on their arms, puzzling over their meaning and wondering just what it meant for them now. They were nearly identical, but the marks looked incomplete, broken up and jagged, until they pressed their forearms together and aligned them; then they became a complete, beautiful pattern. Studying the marks closer, Stephen saw the tattoo was an intricate pattern of interlocking clockwork, cogs and gears, interwoven with vines, ribbons, and mysterious letter-like runes that made him slightly dizzy to follow with his eyes.

"Well," Abby murmured, breaking the silence. "That was certainly something new." She lifted her eyes to Stephen and attempted a smile. "Buy you a drink?"

"A drink sounds good," Stephen agreed.

* * *

Claudia hadn't given much thought beforehand to what kind of home Nick Cutter might have, though now she was curious as he drove the Hilux back. She had never been to any of the Humans' dens before, not alone. Though a part of her was coiled tight in fear, going to a Master's home alone in the dead of night, another part of her knew that Nick would never think to break skin privilege so basely.

The inside of his home appeared quite neat, which surprised her, but then he invited her further inside, to the living room, and it was here that his personality began to show through. There was a worn afghan draped across the back of a well-used sofa, a small telly off in the corner, the coffee table hardly visible beneath its layer of papers and books. It was obviously the most lived-in room of the house, and she knew from years of Servanthood that it was very much a man's house, that Nick Cutter did not have a female sharing his den and probably hadn't for some time. Somehow, that made her feel more at ease. Claudia found herself looking all around the room, her curiosity piqued. By some magic, there was a model of an old ship inside a glass bottle on a shelf; she wondered how they created those, if it was perhaps some form of Craft.

"Uhm, it's up in my bedroom, so would you mind just...waiting here?" Nick asked, not quite meeting her eye, looking oddly anxious, as if he was afraid that she would not like his home. She really quite did. Like it, that was. It was a home, not merely a house.

She dipped her chin in acquiescence, and he left the room, ascending the staircase into the upper level. Claudia resumed looking about the room, noticing the many books and journals that lay about, along with pieces of fossilized bone and shell, small artefacts from many countries. There was a piano in the corner of the room, and when she pressed one of the keys experimentally, it was still in tune. She wondered if he could play or if it was perhaps a remnant of the former den-holders. The scent of him lingered upon every surface. There was even a fireplace, though the ashes in it were old and long-cold. She wondered if he ever lit it during the winter months and had a brief image of warming herself on the hearth as he sat in the armchair there and read his books.

The creak of a step brought Claudia out of her musing, and she turned as Nick returned to the room, carrying what looked like a large book under one arm. What surprised her more was that she could smell faint threads of magic clinging to it even from where she stood. "Here," he murmured, pressing the tome into her hands.

She let out a startled scream, nearly dropping it out of shock. She was holding something so rare that she hadn't thought they existed any longer, something so illegal that if any Human or Dragon was found possessing it, the punishment would be instant execution. She felt absolutely faint even holding it. Trembling fingers lifted to touch the dark leather of the cover, tracing the blackened letters burnt deep in the cover.

"What is it? Are you alright?" Nick asked, startled by her outcry. He figured she would have been a little miffed that he'd kept it a secret, not that she'd get a look on her face like he'd just handed her the Holy Grail wrapped in the Golden Fleece.

But just as quickly, the awed disbelief vanished from her face. Setting it reverently on the coffee table, she turned so fast it was nearly a blur, gripped him by the shirtfront, and shoved him none-too-gently against the wall. One sharp-clawed hand pressed against his throat, not hard enough to hinder his breathing but enough that he wasn't going to be moving anywhere soon. Nick was reminded sharply of their first meeting. "Where did you get it?" she snarled, a deep growl grinding in the depths of her chest.

"It was given to me," he gasped out, startled by the abrupt shift.

"By whom?"

"I don't know, it was left on my front step!"

Her burning golden eyes narrowed. "And?"

"And nothing! When I got home, it was just on my step. It was wrapped in plain brown paper and some string. There was a note, and it said 'Take care of them,' but there was no name, nothing. Just that," he insisted.

She stared at him hard for another moment, then lowered her hand and took a step back from him, taking up the Book and hugging it to her chest with both arms.

Nick rubbed at his throat. "Claudia, what's wrong? What is so important about that book?" he asked.

Claudia's face was carefully blank, unreadable, what he'd come to call her servant expression. It was entirely neutral, devoid of emotion, but he knew that she had to be thinking furiously behind it. "In our time," she murmured softly, "the government restricts what material is allowed to the public – what they read, what is heard on the radio, what is seen on the telly. Owning any material not on the list will lead to incarceration, even execution. The artefacts of my people are to be burnt without exception. Nothing is to be kept, even for study, and if anyone is found to have it illegally, they will be executed. They do not want anyone to have the opportunity to learn about us, to even have the opportunity to see us as anything but their slaves and property. The Book is the most illegal of all our artefacts. It contains knowledge of our species, of our history and our legends, our magic and laws and gods, everything there is to our culture. In the start of the War, they were all destroyed. For all we know…it might very well be the only copy left in the world." She hugged the heavy tome a little closer to her chest, like it was something precious. "You see, Nick, we did not expect a War. When it became apparent that the Human species wasn't going anywhere, we knew that our two races would have to learn to co-exist with each other, to share this world of ours. We had been living amongst you since your beginning, we knew about your cultures and customs, but you knew nothing of ours, except what false legends you created of us. So the wisest of us, our elders and scholars, came together and created the Book. A guide, if you would, for the Human race. So that you might know us as well as we knew you."

"The Book was written for humans?" Nick queried.

"Of course. If it was for _our_ use, it would be written in _our_ language. Did you not wonder that it was written in English rather than Tel'næír?" she answered; he actually hadn't noticed it, and now that she'd pointed it out to him, he felt rather idiotic that he hadn't thought of it earlier. "Anyways, the Humans...were not quite so eager to treaty with us as we had hoped. The records of how the War began are either falsified or lost, but...I believe we were too different, too foreign for Humankind to accept. Because anything Humans are not is a thing they are taught to fear. Or hate. The Books were destroyed in the War or lost. Supposedly there are none left at all in our former time. And since so much of our culture has been destroyed after the War...this might be all we have left."

Nick stared at the heavy, leather-bound tome in her arms, only now beginning to realise what the book meant to her, to Dragons as a whole. Without realising it, he had been in possession of an entire culture, stored and preserved in the pages of the Book. "Then you take it, Claudia. I – I don't have any right to keep it," he said quietly.

Claudia smiled, looking down at the script in her hands, then stepped forward and held it out to him. "I cannot. It was created for Humans, and to a Human it has been given. Apparently, someone out there has decided that you are to be the one to hold the Book. Though I would advise you allow the others to know as well. Knowledge is power in the correct hands, Nick Cutter. Allow them to be powerful as well," she informed him.

He gazed at the Book in her hands for a moment, then reached out to take it from her. When he did, he could almost feel the Mark on his arm tingle and curl up around his shoulder.


End file.
